


Delayed for a Little While

by Lono



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-30
Updated: 2014-10-18
Packaged: 2017-12-25 03:07:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 35,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/947897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lono/pseuds/Lono
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Death cannot stop true love. (The Princess Bride AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Heart Arcane

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock of The Princess Bride. I just love them very much and want them to be happy together.

* * *

Her name was Molly Hooper.

By her thirty-first year, she was alone, both of her parents long in the grave. As was common for the time, they’d fallen prey to Death’s clever scythe of illness. Her mother passed first, when Molly’s cheeks were still plump with youth, while her father went not long after her twenty-third birthday. Molly had tried to help both of them as best she could, but there was only so much a young woman trained as a midwife could do.

By any of her neighbors’ and fellow villagers’ standards, she was long in the tooth.  Often, as she’d walk through the town, she would overhear gossipmongers muttering when she passed.

“Oh, the waste. She’s a pretty girl, but who would want her now? She’s _ancient_.”

“She was too poor to tempt anyone even at the height of her marriageable years. Pity.”

Molly had accepted this ascribed Spinster Status with a shrug and gone about her business, helping bring babies into the world with calm dexterity.   She liked the job well enough, but it certainly wasn’t her passion. Unfortunately, there was little call for a Mistress in the Art of Death in a town that was not only rather incurious about death, but also had a resident who already filled the role; a _male_ resident, trumping her by sheer dint of how he’d been born.

He wasn’t a trained Master. As far as Molly could tell, he specialized in chemistry and an uncanny skill for gleaning facts from innocuous details.  But he was pulled in often enough to confer with the county’s sheriff that he adopted the second title. 

She knew by word of many, many mouths that he had assisted Sheriff Lestrade on several, dangerous endeavors, and had rarely received thanks for it. In choosing to study Death and its assistants, paired with sheer irascibility, he chose a public perception of being morbid and meddlesome. Molly didn’t feel that way.

From afar, she envied and admired his brilliance.

At close proximity, she loathed him.

* * *

They first met at a birthing gone horribly wrong. The father didn’t even fetch her until Anne Thatcher and their child had died. Though fistulae were not uncommon in untended births, Molly had still had to fight a horrified reaction to just how terrible the woman’s death must have been. But that wasn’t all.  Something had her uneasy, beyond the tragic deaths laid out before her.

She lied to Marcus Thatcher, offering him a nervous smile as she hurried to the door. “I need some aid with this. This is beyond my abilities.”

The man mopped at his eyes as he waved Molly away.

She rushed over to the Sheriff’s house on the edge of town. Gregory Lestrade was a good man. Unlike other sheriffs in surrounding counties, he wasn’t interested in the venality that could come with his level of power. He was fair and kind, and Molly trusted him.

He wasn’t sure why she was fetching him, however. “This isn’t the first time you’ve lost a mother and a baby, Miss Hooper.” He frowned at her, not unkindly, as his three, young children ran amok in the room behind him.

“No, Sheriff, it isn’t,” she agreed, raising her voice to be heard above the din. “But there’s something different about this one. It looks like a natural death, but there’s something wrong with it.”

Lestrade crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe. “What makes you say that?”

Molly shrugged helplessly. “I can’t explain it. But I can _feel_ it.”

The sheriff’s cheeks puffed out with a deep breath as he straightened once more. “I can’t go in there if you don’t have something definite.” When Molly opened her mouth to protest, he held up a hand. “But I’ll send Sherlock Holmes.”

A mix of relief and trepidation filled her. She’d only heard of Sherlock Holmes, the self-taught Master in the Art of Death. Though she hungrily read accounts of death studies, she’d had little cause to interact with the man reputed to be brilliant and awful in equal measure.

With nervous thanks, Molly left Lestrade and made her way back to the grisly scene.  She muttered a confirmation to the new widower that someone was coming to assist her, trying to act normal even as she skirted around him and went to the foot of the bed, standing sentry while she waited.

After nearly three quarters of an hour, he came striding in, this Master, without sparing her or the widower a glance. His mouth was turned down in thought or perhaps ennui as he took in the grimness before him. Molly couldn’t say it was an expression borne of any kind upset at the tragedy.

He was significantly taller than she, sharped-featured, pale-eyed, with curling, raven hair. She could appreciate his strange beauty even as she waited tensely to hear what he would have to say.

“Can you help me?” she asked, clearing her throat over her bout of nerves.  She tried to remain vague, not to arouse Marcus Thatcher’s suspicions.

Sherlock Holmes gave a beleaguered sigh. “If I must.”

Molly’s own eyes narrowed into a glare, and she opened her mouth to protest, but Holmes had already moved on. “This woman has been dead for three hours, the fetus longer than that. Why didn’t you seek help?” he asked abruptly, whirling to face Thatcher.

“I thought it were just birthin’ pains,” the widower said, his voice petulant.

The man rumored to have made some occult dealings to achieve such brilliance rolled his eyes before turning back to the bed. His gaze flicked to Molly as he began skirting its perimeter.  “You’re the midwife. Was this woman in your care?”

“No, Mr. Thatcher tells me his wife had no desire to use a midwife.” Molly explained. 

“So you can’t tell me when she was due to be at full term?”

She stepped closer to Anne Thatcher’s body, peering at the swelling of her belly. “Not with any certainty. She was a slight woman and they all carry differently, but it looks like the infant was close to if not _at_ full term.”

Holmes leaned over the corpse, peering perfunctorily before he started scanning the area around Anne Thatcher’s body. “What makes you think her death was unnatural?”

Marcus Thatcher made a choked sound at the bald question while Molly glared at Holmes. She’d hoped for some subtlety in the matter, but she had heard that this purported Master was about as subtle as a runaway boulder. 

Resolutely turning to face him, but trying to keep Thatcher in her sights, she explained, “There had to have been plenty of signs that this was not a normal labor. The hemorrhaging alone should have alarmed Mr. Thatcher.  Yet Mrs. Thatcher was left die here in the bed without help.”

Holmes cocked an imperious eyebrow.  “Have you seen this sort of thing before? An obstetric fistula?”

Molly nodded. “Once. The mother survived for a short time after, but infection set in and died three days later.”

“Have women been known to survive indefinitely?” He studied the wrists and ankles of the body as he spoke.

“It’s rare, but it’s possible.”

As he opened the mouth of Anne Thatcher’s corpse, squinting to see in the dim light, Holmes once spoke once more. “Everything looks normal, anatomically speaking. It presents as a birth gone awry.”

Molly deflated, feeling the accusatory stare of Marcus Thatcher burning into her. “You witch,” he hissed. “I sought your assistance after me beloved wife died, and this is how you thank me? Accusin’ me of killin’ her?”

She opened her mouth to defend herself, but Holmes was talking before she could even gather a defense. “Oh, Miss Hooper’s right. You murdered your wife. I just was saying it _looks_ normal.”

“He did?” Molly turned abruptly back to look at Holmes, trying to see what have damning evidence solidified it for a Master. It had just been a hunch. She was relieved she hadn’t bandied about a false accusation, but remained confused about what it was exactly that had made her suspicious.

“It was her tincture,” Holmes supplied, seeing Molly’s confusion.

Her eyes followed his gaze over to the rough table by the bed. It held a glass with some sort of flowering plant, a cast iron pot, and cup. It was all innocent enough, but something had to tell Holmes what he knew. Molly slowly walked over to the table, accidentally brushing the man as she walked by.

Whatever Anne Thatcher had been drinking was gone  and the pot sat empty, too. But there had to be _something_. Sherlock Holmes couldn’t just divine its former contents.  She glanced back at him and he was watching her. His handsome face and stately posture were redolent with doubt that she could match his wits.

Clenching her fists a little and developing a strong, sudden dislike for this Master in the Art of Death, Molly turned back to the table and looked again carefully.

And then she saw it. It was by sheer luck that she recognized the plant stems in the vase. She’d thought the book on Asiatic herbs she’d purchased two weeks prior to be an exorbitant purchase, but now she was ever so grateful to the Chinese man peddling his wares in the town square.

“Caulophyllum,” she burst out excitedly.

Holmes drew back, blinking at her in surprise. Then he looked a little put out. _Probably upset that a woman proved his assumptions wrong,_ Molly thought triumphantly.

“Well, yes, actually,” he conceded. Turning back to face Marcus Thatcher, he sighed impatiently. “You poisoned your wife with blue cohosh plant. You told her it would induce labor, and it did, but you continued to give her the tincture, likely saying it would hurry her delivery along, until she’d received a lethal dose.  She was too weak to deliver the fetus, and it died.”

Thatcher began edging to the door, looking a bit wild. “She took it herself. She wanted to have the child and be done with it.”

Scoffing, Holmes advanced on the other man. “I would almost believe that if it weren’t for the marks on your wife. You tried to avoid leaving any sign of a struggle when you held her down while she convulsed, but there are small bruises on the medial and lateral sides of her wrists.”

“I—I didn’t want her to hurt herself,” Thatcher tried.

“Again, I applaud your meager attempts at lying, but your wife also vomited up the contents of her stomach not long before she expired. You cleaned her mouth, but not well enough.” Holmes came to a stop close enough that, were he level with the shorter man, their noses would be touching. “Valiant effort. So where’d you get the blue cohosh, Thatcher? A rare, Asian plant, not commonly found around these parts.”

Thatcher refused to speak.

“I can answer that,” Molly supplied. “There was a traveling salesman in town a fortnight ago selling exotic herbs. They were predominantly of Asian origin. I am certain Mr. Thatcher had no trouble getting his hands on it.”

Holmes nodded once at her before cocking an eyebrow at Thatcher, as if to say, “Your move.”

Thatcher looked like he was considering bolting through the door, but instead he decided to take a last stab at defending himself. “She went to whelp, and I was struggling to feed us as it is.”

“Oh, and that was entirely your wife’s fault,” Molly spat, before realizing she’d even moved toward the two men. But she couldn’t stop. “Everyone knows women spontaneously generate babies, so I can see why you had to kill them.” As she spoke, she eyed an axe buried in a stump outside the dingy window of the cottage. Perhaps she could codge Thatcher over the head with it?

Holmes, perhaps seeing the direction of her gaze and misinterpreting her expression for something far more violent, said, “Miss Hooper, perhaps you could run and fetch the good Sheriff?”

Molly nodded and backed away, not necessarily pleased that Holmes was giving her instructions, but someone did need to get Lestrade. She would rather not be left alone with Thatcher, anyway. Pulling her cloak tightly around her, she rushed down the packed dirt path and back toward the Sheriff’s home.

 After several more hours, Molly stumbled from the Thatcher cottage for the last time. Lestrade had taken Marcus Thatcher into custody on Holmes’ word without waiting to hear the man’s confession. Molly had to her stamp down her resentment over the blind faith the sheriff placed in the man. She did remind herself that Lestrade hardly knew her. Perhaps she could earn that regard eventually.

The three of them watched as the swollen, lifeless bodies of Anne Thatcher and her stillborn infant were hauled away while a passing bell rang belatedly from a nearby chapel.

As she watched the two men trudge away with their burden, Sherlock Holmes stepped up alongside her.

Fighting to speak over a sudden onslaught of shyness, she said. “Thank you for your help tonight, Mr. Holmes. I appreciate it. At first I was afraid Sheriff Lestrade wasn’t going to do anything.”

Holmes shrugged, bored once more. “It all turned out to be rather anticlimactic, didn’t it? Thatcher didn’t even make it difficult for me.”

His sneer had Molly gaping. “Mr. Holmes, a woman and her child are dead. It’s nothing but a tragedy,” she sputtered, appalled by his blatant disregard.

She’d seen her share of death and she had even developed a morbid sense of humor about it. But she told herself it was different, because she still felt the burden of horror and a desire for justice. 

His brow furrowed as he regarded her. “You were quite the cool one while we were standing over this _tragic_ woman’s body”—he shook his head sharply when Molly tried to interject—“Found your prim and proper ways now that you don’t feel the adrenaline coursing through you? Now that the scent of a puzzle has faded, Miss Hooper, is your brain reengaging with your staid and repressed upbringing? Does it see your instinct to relish the hunt for answers and is it telling you, ‘Oh, now, this is wrong’? Please, I beg you, spare me your judgment and your lies.”

Molly stepped back, feeling like he’d slapped her. Feeling like he’d seen far too much.

She began tying the ribbons of her cloak in fast, jerky motions, feeling too much fury even to speak at first. Finally she managed to grit out, “Could you do me a favor, Mr. Holmes, and go to the devil?”

He grinned, a sudden, hard flash of teeth.  “If I must.”

And then, flicking at a piece of lint on his greatcoat, he swept off into the night’s darkness.

* * *

After that, Molly encountered Sherlock Holmes at least once a week. She began to suspect she had angered some deity and Holmes was her punishment.

Two days after the Thatcher murders, she’d rounded the corner at the town market and found him standing at her favorite bookseller’s stall. She’d had to fight down a growl of frustration. That was where _she_ wanted to be. Now she couldn’t, because she most certainly wasn’t going to interact with that odious man.  Instead, she had to busy herself by pretending to be interested in hearing about an old woman’s beloved sheep, bizarrely named Finn McCool, as she looked at skeins of poorly spun yarn until she saw Holmes casually saunter away. He arched an eyebrow at Molly as he passed; telling her he knew exactly what she was about.

Six days later, she literally ran into him as she made her way up the front garden at Sheriff Lestrade’s house. She’d come with the intent of checking on his wife, who was about to begin her fourth confinement. As she turned from closing the garden gate, she bumped full-on into a solid chest. Looking up, her eyes met the rather annoyed light blue of Sherlock Holmes’ gaze. She chastised her traitorous brain for noticing that he smelled enticingly of pine and tobacco.

Molly stood there for a moment before realizing she was staring. Clearing her throat, she muttered a semi-polite ‘Excuse me” as she hurried around him. She felt rather proud of herself for not barreling on without comment.

Not that he seemed to notice either way, but she still took it as a personal triumph.

Eight days after that, Molly had to work with him once more.

One of the town’s watchmen came knocking on her door in the first hours of the morning. There wasn’t even a glimmer of sunrise or the rustling of a rooster to tell her just how early it actually was. She was used to being roused at all hours. Babies generally left much to be desired as far as keeping to any sort of schedule.

But this was no delivery.

An unknown assailant had attacked a man in a nearby fallow field. Gunnar Himmel sustained several injuries, but none worse than the gash on his leg, courtesy of a rusted hoe. They’d had no luck finding the attacker and, in the meantime, the leg injury had turned septic.

When Molly arrived, she found a flurry of activity as she stepped into the one room cottage. Over people’s voices, muttering in discussion, she could hear the pained moans issuing from the man on a bed situated against the far wall. Casting aside her cloak and hurriedly rolling up her sleeves, Molly rushed over to him.

She could smell the injury before she got close. The sight was even worse. Someone had cut away Himmel’s breeches to his knee, exposing a laceration that had nearly degloved his calf.

“Where’s Doctor Morgenstern?” she questioned the room at large.

“Deep in his cups down at the Goat and Bonnet, where else?” a deep voice replied to her left.

Molly was finding that particular rather familiar, much to her chagrin. She glanced at Sherlock Holmes long enough to see his eyes flickering around various surfaces, and she knew he was once again collecting information from items that would fall beyond most others’ notice.

“Mr. Holmes,” she greeted before returning her attention to Himmel. Speaking in an undertone, she said, “We need a doctor. We can’t save his leg.” 

Holmes followed her closer to the bed. Together, they looked down and the seeping wound. Spidery, black tendrils veined away from the site, telling Molly just how ominous Himmel’s situation actually was.

“What do you know about amputation?” Holmes asked, for once following her lead and keeping his voice quiet.

“I’ve read some things about it, but I’ve never seen one done or anything like it.” Molly felt a gnawing fear take root in the pit of her belly.  She breathed deeply, telling herself that it might not come to that. “You’re sure the doctor is… indisposed?”

He shot her an incredulous look. “This surprises you somehow?”

Sanford Morgenstern rarely made it out of his own home before imbibing far too much drink, let alone that he usually only made the short walk between his garden and the local tavern. Molly was certain he was responsible for any number of mistakes in treating his patients, some lethal.

That said, she was terrified that Gunnar Himmel wasn’t any better off having her there, instead. She’d been called on before to assist Morgenstern, and had even substituted for him during his bouts with inebriation, but never for anything so dire.  She was the only option, though. Shaking her head, Molly realized she could very well be making the situation worse by fretting. It was time she collected herself and tried to save the injured man’s life.

With a sigh, she conceded, “I guess not.”

Molly prided herself on her skill in midwifery. Though it wasn’t her dream, she still made the most of it, taking gentle care of the mothers and babies who came into her care. She refused to employ any of the tugging and yanking that many midwives chose, often to the detriment of their charges.  If she could keep her calm and use some of those principles here, then surely she could do what needed to be done.

In some ways, preparing to cut off a man’s leg was no different from delivering a baby. She set to boiling water and finding rags and sheets, and gathered her surgical tools. Molly carried a bag to all of her home visits filled with various items—a knife that she kept sharpened and honed, spring scissors, thread, and needles. And all of them would be helpful here.

She became so immersed in her task that she didn’t realize most of the concerned neighbors and the watchmen swarming the cabin had left until she was ready to begin in earnest.  Turning to ask for assistance, her words died on her tongue when she realized only Sherlock Holmes remained.

“Where did they all go?”

“For some reason, none of them wanted to see you cut off a man’s leg,” he murmured. He was busily pulling fibers from a greatcoat hanging by the door and Molly felt a flash of alarm that he was going to leave, too.

“You can’t leave,” she said, hoping the edge of hysteria in her voice might be apparent only to her.

His brows shot up, nearly disappearing into the errant curls drooping over his forehead. “Oh, really? Are you going to chain me to this cottage? Your new patient might not appreciate the delay. Struggling to hold me down would only end in embarrassment for you.”

“I’ll need help,” she insisted, not feeling remotely confident that Holmes would ever change his mind.

“I’ve noticed at least ten different areas in which you need help, Miss Hooper, but it’s not my responsibility to address them.”

Molly considered throwing her knife at him, but then she’d have to clean it again before using it on Himmel’s leg.

Instead, she decided to try complimenting him. Once, as a young girl, she saw peacock at a local faire. It had ignored everyone and nipped at people’s ankles until its owner started selling smalls bags of grain to the onlookers. Given his proper homage, the peacock had unfurled his tail and posed for his admirers.  Molly was beginning to suspect Sherlock Holmes would be much the same.

“I just imagine you’d know more than even Doctor Morgenstern, actually. You probably have read up on the subject, and I trust you’re something of an expert.”

His eyes narrowed suspiciously for a moment before returning to their usual impassive gaze. Flippantly, he said, “I planned to stay, actually. I’m curious to see an actual amputation.”

Molly barely contained her noise of frustration. Instead, she handed him a leather strap she’d found hanging on the door and then knelt by the low bed. “Would you please put this in his mouth? I don’t want him biting through his tongue.”

As she began washing the pus and blood away from the wound, hoping to prevent the infection from spreading once she started cutting, Molly glanced at Holmes. He stood behind where she knelt, watching over her shoulder with a frown.

“What brought you here tonight, Mr. Holmes?”

His eyes met hers momentarily and then returned to where her hands gently moved around the wound site. “I’ve been asked by the Watch to find Herr Himmel’s attacker. They’re rather livid that they’ve not been able to discover anything.”

She looked up at him again, using her forearm to push some hair off of her forehead.  “Any luck so far?”

For a few moments, the splash of the rag dipping into the basin of water at her side was the only sound to fill the room, and Molly wondered if he was simply not going to answer.

But then: “In a matter of speaking.” Holmes didn’t lose his frown. It was beginning resemble of look of consternation. And he was looking at her now, not her semi-unconscious patient.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“What do you observe?” was his unhelpful reply.

“What?” she asked, baffled, before blowing at the same hank of hair as it fell back into her eyes.

Holmes sighed in frustration.  “Oh, for God’s sake.” Reaching forward and rolling his eyes as she alarmedly tried to dodge his hand, he tucked the hair behind her ear. He wasn’t exactly tender about it, but Molly had to admit he was more successful than she. She refused to acknowledge the extreme awareness she still felt on each point of her forehead and temple that his callused fingers had touched, even after his hand had returned to his side.

Without breaking mental stride, he repeated, “What do you observe? About Himmel’s injury?”

The mottled, seeping wound didn’t look any better washed and the obvious infection now reaching his blood didn’t look any less severe.  The skin around the wound—the part that was at least still viable and not necrotizing—was swollen and shiny; yet one more sign of just how dire the situation was. Molly wracked her brain, a frown curving her mouth as she stared.

“Look,” Holmes said, coming around to her side and dropping down to his knees. He pointed along the length of the shin. “One of the first things I learned to observe was simple geometry. It’s not always easy or obvious, but luckily it is in this case.”

He looked at her expectantly. Molly wasn’t sure where this tutelage was coming from, but she scolded the excitement fluttering in her chest not to get its hopes up. Holmes might very well just be bored.

“The angle that the hoe cut his leg is downward facing, running along his tibia approximately at forty-five degrees,” she began carefully. She looked to Holmes for approval, but his face remained placid as he waited. “The connective tissue was sheared cleanly away from the bone. This indicates that Mr. Himmel was standing when he was attacked; the hoe was forced down his flesh, not raked along it.”

She closed her eyes, trying to picture the event. And then it hit.

“A hoe’s blade is bent at ninety degrees and its handle is long and cumbersome. If an attacker had come at Himmel with such a tool, he would have had to be standing on a lower surface because the hoe’s handle would have be held nearly perpendicular to the ground.” Holmes had yet to show much of a reaction, but she thought he might have leaned in minutely in anticipation of her words. “And even if the attacker had held it in such a way that he got a similar cut, it wouldn’t have been a clean degloving. Mr. Himmel was found in the middle of a flat field?”

The corner of Holmes’ mouth kicked up in a smile and his eyes warmed slightly. “Correct.”

“So… he cut himself? Why?”

Holmes’ slight smile bloomed into a grin. “That’s the mystery, isn’t it? But I suspect the motivation has something to do with the horse hair that’s on nearly all of his clothes. Did you see any horses on his property?”

Molly shook her head as she tied a long strip of cloth tightly around the lower part of Himmel’s thigh as a tourniquet.

“I didn’t, either,” Holmes said, “but there was plenty of equine hair to be found. I haven’t heard about any horse thefts in the area, but I need to get to the field where he was found. I suspect that Herr Himmel found himself nearly caught out in an attempted crime, and sabotaged his person to draw attention away from it.”

Molly marveled at the lengths of some people’s desperation. She’d been exposed to it more and more as she grew older, but it still had the ability to surprise her.

“So what will happen to him? Will he be punished?”

“Not really my concern. I’ll inform the Watch. Not that they have much to punish Himmel for, beyond exhausting their investigative abilities. Which are already meager, I might add.”

Not sure what else to say, Molly gathered herself. “I’m about to begin. Could you please lean across his waist to keep him from thrashing, and press down on his thigh? It should immobilize his lower leg a little.”

Holmes complied, shockingly without a pithy remark.

She did it as quickly as possible. Himmel came out of his fevered stupor at the first cut, and his cries only worsened.  It was traumatic for the patient _and_ for Molly. She spared a moment of selfish resentment that at least Himmel got to pass out from the pain eventually. Her faculties had to remain fully engaged, and she felt distinctly queasy over causing him such pain.

Holmes, she wasn’t so certain about. He looked rather unruffled by the whole ordeal. Some sweat had beaded on his brow and his mouth pursed with the effort of holding Himmel down, but once she’d sewn the skin over the injured man’s newly stumped knee, Holmes sat back on his heels, looking rather unruffled.

After a few more minutes, Molly slumped back, too, finally finished.  Holmes’ eyes moved over her work.   “You’re not the _worst_ sawbones I’ve ever seen,” he conceded.

From anyone else, Molly would say she’d been damned by faint praise. From Sherlock Holmes, however, she felt like he’d just waxed poetic about her skill. She feared her chest might have actually puffed up at the noxiously poor compliment.

Especially when she remembered, “You told me before we started that you’d never seen an amputation.”

He snorted. “I’ve seen drawings and read accounts. There were several unfavorable scenarios that might have come to fruition here tonight that you _narrowly_ avoided.”

Molly blinked several times and then changed the subject. “I need to stay with Mr. Himmel. I’m going to leave the  disposal up to you. Hopefully there’s a nearby fire hot enough to burn it to ash.”

He hefted the lower half of Gunnar Himmel’s left leg by the ankle and looked at it, calculating. “If I must.”

But Molly noticed that he wrapped the severed limb up rather too carefully for someone on his way to burn it in hearth or field. She felt a twinge of jealousy that she hadn’t thought of taking it for her own study, but the gleam in Holmes’ eye looked rather too greedy. She decided it was a lost cause now.

She didn’t say it aloud, but she was struck that they worked surprisingly well together, considering what a miserable sod he could be. Instead, she simply said, “Thank you for your help, Mr. Holmes. I truly couldn’t have done it without you.”

He looked a little stunned to be receiving yet more gratitude from her. He only floundered for a moment, however, before he nodded his acknowledgment and left. Molly thought about calling after him to warn him. A bluish toe was sticking out of the folds of the blanket tucked under his arm. She debated, lest he alarm someone, but then she decided she wasn’t _that_ grateful.

* * *

The oldest woman in the town died at the admirable age of eighty-two. There’d been older residents in the past, but she had still been venerated for her accomplishment. Her wake was a crowded affair, the small kitchen crowded with townsfolk. Even more teemed in the tiny sitting area where Iris Bedwyn’s open coffin rested.

Molly huddled in a corner, feeling out of place. If she hadn’t loved Iris as much as she did, she wouldn’t have come. Unfortunately, the two had been rather close. Iris had little remaining family, and had found a kindred spirit in the town’s midwife.  So there Molly was, and there she would stay until the body was returned to the earth.  But it wasn’t easy.

It wasn’t that the people the town disliked Molly. She had simply never fit in. They saw her as a strange sort, with her willing midwifery and her participation in any number of ghastly activities, such as chopping off a man’s leg. Her inability to snare a husband only solidified it for her literal-minded neighbors: there had to be something wrong with her.

There was nothing to be done about it. Molly existed somewhere in the middle ground between accepted and outcast, and she didn’t see that changing anytime soon. Besides, it gave her the chance to be the wry observer at gatherings like this.

She would feel offended about the whispered discussions that had nothing to do with Iris if she didn’t know that her friend would have wanted to know every bit of gossip Molly overheard.

“….heard that the Mayor has been making frequent visits to that old mill in the woods west of town. So has his assistant, Geoffrey Teasdale. They come out looking rather mussed,” Molly overheard one of two women standing close by say.

Her companion genuflected before leaning in conspiratorially. “Well I heard that his wife is in a delicate condition,”—this was news to Molly—“and Mrs. Potter has seen the mayor’s brother coming and going to the house when Mayor Beaton is out doing his ‘mill inspections’.”

Molly shook her head. It seemed like every scandal had some libidinous root. Everyone wanted to know who was in whose bed, but acted shocked and appalled when the information came to light.

Bored with it, she edged along the wall until she could hear two gentlemen having a murmured discussion.

“Are you sure Holmes has proof? What could there be to find?”

Molly’s ears prickled at the mention of the town’s local Master in the Art of Death. She listened carefully as the men continued on, oblivious of their new audience.

“I don’t know how he knew. But he told Magistrate Brown that he’s aware that Brown’s working for the prince’s interests and no one else’s.”

The first man dabbed at his mouth shakily with a handkerchief. “What do we do?”

“Await the prince’s orders. What else can we do, Wilkes?”

They wandered off, out of earshot, and Molly was left watching their retreating backs, not sure what she’d just overheard.

Corruption was nothing new. It seemed that any position of power was susceptible to the lure of more money and even more power. But the idea that Sherlock Holmes, who studied chemistry and crime, was somehow involved in something concerning Prince James made Molly leery. 

The prince had a monster’s reputation, and it was in his subjects’ best interests to keep their heads down and stay quiet.  Usually it worked, especially in Molly’s town, which sat far enough away not to feel the constant brushing of James’ spidery legs.

What did Holmes know? Why were those men scared?

As if her thoughts had summoned him, Molly looked up and there he was. He echoed her earlier pose; half-hiding in one of the room’s darker corners.

Sherlock Holmes looked like he’d rather be anywhere else.

Molly skirted her way through the crowd, bumping into the corner of Iris’ coffin. Murmuring an apology to it and the body inside, Molly continued over to Holmes.

He didn’t so much greet her as speak as if he was picking up on an earlier conversation. “It would have made this ordeal more memorable if you’d bumped the coffin off of the table,” he said, his voice bored.

So much for no one noticing.

“Do y— _did_ you know Mrs. Bedwyn?” she asked, instead of offering excuses for the near-miss.

Shrugging, Holmes leaned his shoulder against the wall. “She was a friend of my mother’s. I only met her a handful of times. She aided me on an inquiry once, though. Mrs. Bedwyn was rather skilled at embroidery, and such knowledge proved useful in an inheritance dispute.”

Molly imagined Holmes tearing a pretty, hand stitched pastoral scene from a wall, flipping it every which direction and sniffing it. With whatever he gleaned from it, she could just see him insulting some poor thing’s skills and calling into question her parentage at the same time.  He would likely slight her intelligence while he was at it, somehow linking all three traits, disparate thought they seemed, into one damning piece of proof.

“And you?” he asked

Her imagination interrupted, Molly looked at him in question.

“How did you know the departed?” he clarified.

She smiled a bit sadly. “She was a dear friend.”

“Ah,” he said, not looking particularly interested in Molly’s connection to the decedent. “And do you take comfort from the ritual? Staring at a dead body and witnessing the ghoulish curiosity of people who hardly knew her?”

She looked around philosophically. “Well, they say these things are more for the living than the dead, don’t they? Iris would be glad she gave them that last bit of titillation.”

Holmes actually looked a little intrigued now. “That’s a rather avant-garde attitude to have about death. You’re not all missish about these things. Why not?”

“I figure Iris is beyond caring. I’ll miss _her_ , not a corpse in a casket.”

“Ah, so you believe her soul lives on in eternal summer?” Molly had lost his interest again.

She shrugged. “I hope she’s at peace. I don’t know whether that means at peace in heaven or at peace in a far more literal sense. But I’d probably be burned at the stake if I made that opinion too well known, and then it would likely fall on you to deliver any babies in town.”

The image of Sherlock Holmes encouraging women through childbirth and tenderly swaddling infants filled her head. She squelched down a laugh.

He noticed her lips twitching and his brows rose haughtily.  “Smiling at a wake is generally discouraged.”

“Yes, of course.” But try though she might, she couldn’t stop her mouth from spreading into a grin as he continued to look at her sternly.  “Sorry, sorry,” she said.  And then a guffaw escaped, too.

“Miss Hooper,” he warned.

Molly’s body shook with her efforts to contain herself, and Holmes’ stony scrutiny only fueled her on more. He was just so… severe, and yet she’d was _sure_ that he could be every bit as ludicrous as she. How could he _not_? They were birds of a feather in many ways. Not that he’d ever admit it.

It was a brief moment of glee on an otherwise sober day and Molly couldn’t help but notice Holmes’ mouth had a slight, wry tilt to it as he regarded her. 

Eventually, she gathered herself into some semblance of order. Remembering the conversation she’d overheard, she asked him, “Do you have some sort of involvement with Prince James?”

If she’d doubted that Holmes was trying not to smile with her moments before, the way his face went devoid of any expression at her question would have confirmed it.

“Why do you ask?”

She looked around them before edging closer to him. He had to duck his head to hear her, she spoke so low. “I overheard some men talking quite nervously just before I came over to speak with you.”

“Men?” His question was casual, but she saw his eyes flit around the room over her head before returning to meet hers.

“I didn’t recognize them. One was named”—she closed her eyes, trying to recall—“Wilson? Willett?”

“Wilkes?” Holmes murmured.

She nodded. “I didn’t hear the other’s name. Anyway, Mr. Wilkes asked his companion how much you knew. Something about Magistrate Brown and his work for Prince James.”

Holmes came even nearer. Molly could feel the warmth of his body radiating toward her. “And this mystery man replied….?”

“He only knew that you had told the magistrate that you’re aware he’s in the prince’s pocket and that they need to await the prince’s orders on how to proceed.”

“Anything else?”

“No, they moved away and I couldn’t hear them anymore.”

A slow smile curled Holmes’ lips. “So they’re nervous. Good. Very good.”

Molly felt alarm flicker in her. “Why is that good? Won’t that make them desperate?”

He chuckled mirthlessly. “No, they’re curs held on a leash. They might gnash their teeth, but until their master gives them direction, they might as well be in steel traps. They won’t chew off their own paws. It’d be suicide.”

“You aren’t… you’re being careful, right? You’re not willfully putting yourself in Prince James’ way, are you?”

Frowning, he asked, “Why do you care?” He looked genuinely confused.

“I don’t want…. I worry….” Molly worried her bottom lip with her teeth and started wringing her hands.  How could she articulate this? How could she tell Holmes that she wanted his safety without sounding forward? “The prince is a dangerous man. I’ve only heard stories about him, but not one of them has been good.”

Holmes peered down at her. His expression was unsettling, not its usual sneering arrogance or even bored perusal. Though he kept to himself, during the times she’d seen him since their first meeting, he’d only allowed brief eye contact. Now, however, his eyes held hers. He didn’t answer her. He just stared at her, his lips moving as if working through a riddle.

A woman’s theatrical sob startled them and they jerked away from their close conference. Molly felt heat in her cheeks, but she was soon distracted as she watched a woman throw herself over the coffin, demanding to know why God had seen fit to rip away her dear Aunt Ivy.

Molly turned to comment drolly to Holmes that apparently the woman’s aunt wasn’t so dear that she’d ever bothered to learn her actual name. But when she looked behind her, he was gone. 

* * *

The days grew colder. Fields turned a blanched, pale yellow and the trees stood bare against grey skies. Geese flew away, the only evidence that they’d been there their retreating cries. Townsfolk who had previously chopped wood at their leisure began cutting stores for winter with a new urgency, while children who’d formerly run through streets and alleys now retreated to the warmth of their homes.

The town began to find its winter quiet.

Molly made her way through underbrush, listening to the cold snap of deadening grass under her feet. Finally, she arrived at the riverbank. Paying no mind to the sparkling morning frost that had yet to melt off of the ground, she sat on a lip of the bank, her feet dangling over the river.

She breathed in the scent of the slate, brackish water and felt the cold sting her sinuses.

She hadn’t felt this peaceful in quite some time.

Work had been full of stresses and scares. Molly hadn’t lost any babies or mothers that autumn, but she’d had her share of close calls and today, after a long night attending a breech birth, she was grateful just to have some time outdoors, not in the stuffy rooms that contained all of the smells associated with birthing infants.

Though she had her first morning off in days, Molly woke before the sun. As soon as it began to glimmer in the morning sky, she set off for her favorite spot on the river, a book in hand. She intended to study some herbal remedies, hoping to find something gentle for new mothers to take for pain post-partum.

Soon, she lost track of time and herself, and only came back to the present when she heard feet treading through the grass, coming toward her.

She’d never been easily alarmed, but Molly still fought done a twinge of unease and annoyance over having been found. Perhaps it was because she couldn’t see who approached her from her vantage. 

Just as she was about scramble up from her spot, Holmes came into sight.  She exhaled a relieved sigh and offered a small smile of greeting.

Naturally, he did not return it.

“Good morning.” No use being rude, she told herself, though she could tell he was not in a jocular mood.

“Miss Hooper,” was his only reply.  His voice was deep with recent sleep, which had Molly wondering if he’d rolled out of bed, tugged on some clothes, and headed right to her hideaway.  She couldn’t say why that pleased her so, but she suspected his sleep-roughened voice might have some small part to do with it.

She sat still, waiting for him to explain his sudden presence, but the only sound to fill the air was the rushing of the river against its banks.  Holmes looked about, not meeting her inquiring gaze, and his lip curled in mild distaste at whatever he saw.

Biting her lip, she offered, “Would you like to join me?”

“What if the townsfolk see you, unchaperoned and with me? You’d be ruined,” he admonished crankily, even as he lowered himself to the bank beside her.

Molly snorted. “You’re the one who came to me. But if that’s the case, I was ruined ages ago. Unfortunately for them—and fortunately for me—I provide a very particular service to the women of the town that would make ostracizing me rather a difficult thing.”

“You’ve scared off anyone who might want to study the skill just for that reason, didn’t you?” he asked her.

She opened her mouth to protest, but noticed a dim but unmistakable twinkle in his eyes. He was waking up a bit, apparently.  She gave a small laugh. “You’ve figured me out.”

“I’m an expert at that,” he replied simply, leaning over to examine the water. The toes of his boots nearly danced on the surface of the river, though he kept his feet parallel to its bubbling rush.

She hoped the red coloring her cheeks would be excused by the chill air. Really, she was behaving like schoolchild. He was attractive, yes, but that didn’t mean she was _attracted to_ him.  She instructed herself to grow up.

They sat there in companionable silence for a short time longer before he spoke again. “It’s getting rather cold for communing with nature like this, Miss Hooper.  The first snow will probably fall in the next few days.”

Molly huddled further into the wool of her dress, cloak, and muffler.  “I like it out here. It is starting to get quiet with the birds migrating away. The air smells different. It helps me think.”

Holmes _hmm_ ed noncommittally, but Molly was just pleased that he at least wasn’t pointing out some personality flaw, apparent because of this indulgence of hers. He sat, unmoving. Under his greatcoat and cold weather clothes, she couldn’t see any muscles flexing or twitching with ill-contained energy. 

He was still only in fits and bursts, she noticed. In the three months that she’d known him, during which they’d been thrust together for various emergencies and medical inquiries, she’d had occasion to witness him retreating into his mind more than once. Though he sometimes gestured violently as he worked through self-argument, for the most part he would cease all movement, steeple his hands and close his eyes. She’d even seen him do so midsentence.

It fascinated her. _He_ fascinated her. She tried to remember that he was irascible and rude, but she couldn’t forget that he didn’t condemn her because of her work or because of her interests. That alone set him far apart from most of the people she encountered, but the fact that his intelligence was so bewitching had Molly questioning just how deep her regard for Sherlock Holmes went.

“Why do you like it out here?” his voice took the place of the quiet around them

She blinked at him. “I just explained that I like the qui—“

“Yes, yes,” he interrupted. “But I see you walking this way often, and you always choose this spot. Why?”

She looked over at him, feeling bold suddenly. He had just admitted he watched her, after all. Though he watched everyone and everything, this felt different. But she wouldn’t bring that up. Instead, she decided to poke at him.

“Didn’t you just say you’re the expert at figuring me out? Why don’t you tell me?”

His eyes didn’t roll. His lip didn’t curl. But, oh, he was annoyed. Molly covered her triumphant smirk by burying her face in her muffler as she watched him.

Turning his head from her, he looked around and began speaking quickly. “From this spot, you face West, North, and East. The village is located northeast from where we’re sitting, so you can see smoke rising from its chimneys on days like today. To the west, you can see the woods as well as the road into the town. Handy for watching new arrivals.

“This particular section of land hangs slightly over the water, perhaps convenient for fishing and sport. But that doesn’t fit with what I know about you. Rather, the lack of hoof or footprints, paired with your solitary nature, indicates that the area is secluded enough to your liking. In fact, you’re likely the only person to come here.”

“Well, I was until now—“

“Hush,” he waved her away. “The tree has no markings, so it won’t provide any useful data. So forgive me for extrapolating, but needs must. The familiarity with which you pick your way through the flora indicates at least several years’ worth of visits. But I predict more than just several. Your father was in trade and left town often. You found if you sat here, you could watch for his return. Now you come out of nostalgia.  Really, Ms. Hooper, it’s far too easy.”

She freed her smiling mouth from the scarf and replied, “Actually, I just like to watch the sunrise and sunset. It’s good place for it.”

He gaped at her, at a loss, and she found she couldn’t tease him any longer. “And perhaps this was my favorite spot to sit as a girl. You were wrong about one thing, though. My father didn’t travel that often. He was a scholar. But he did go hunting with my grandfather in the woods. I would wait to see what they’d bring home for supper and then run ahead to tell my mother.”

Holmes was still staring at her, though less appalled and more considering. “Your mother died when you were eighteen,” he said.

“Yes, actually. How’d you figure that out?”

“I remember it,” he said, simply.

Molly wasn’t sure what to make of that, but she didn’t want to break whatever spell had him talking to her as a peer, not a haughty man who knew his intelligence surpassed most anybody’s. So she waited.

“The town midwife, dying in childbirth herself. It was no small news.”

She couldn’t respond well with the latent grief still there.  Instead, she nodded once, sharply.

“Did you begin training in midwifery before or after her death?” he asked her, not unkindly.

“After,” she murmured. “The town suddenly found itself in need of one and I had some knowledge. Doctor Morgenstern certainly wouldn’t have been of use.”

“Did you ever think that someone else might be willing to take over?”

She felt a pall of sadness settle on her chest, but she still answered him. “What else was there for me to do?”

“You’re cleverer than most of the people around here. You could have flourished.”

Her laugh was dejected. She supposed he must be rather wrapped up in his own brain, seeing things in so definitely with no grey areas. Molly was clever, ergo, she should be using that cleverness to full advantage.

She grabbed a handful of frozen grass, shredding it and dropping its shards into the water below. “I may be clever—and I won’t let you forget that you told me that, by the way—but I am also a woman.  There was nothing for me to do beyond midwifery. It was the only way I could practice even a simile of my true interests, and I think I use any cleverness I have there, too.” She’d resigned herself to this fact ages ago. Though it was flattering that Holmes held her to a higher standard, it felt important that he _see_ how life limited her options were.

He had no response to that. But he didn’t look smug about it, so she felt some small victory. 

He fiddled with a rough stone he’d found at his side and glanced at her. “And if you were able to, what _would_ you do?”

“What you do, to a degree, though more from the study of anatomy and illness than investigating people. If I could better understand death and dying, I think it could only help people.”

“A midwife who speaks of death,” he mused.

She frowned. “You assist on inquiries that have nothing to do with death. Can’t a person have multiple strengths?”

He rumbled with a small laugh. It was the first time she’d ever heard him make such a noise, she realized. “Yes, of course. I just am appreciating the irony of a person who brings life being fascinated by the end of it.”

“Well, they’re really one and same. We all were born and we’ll all die. I wasn’t frightened by birth, so why would I be frightened of death?”

He tossed his stone into the river before standing. Brushing blades of grass from his breeches, Holmes smiled—a twitch of his lips, more than anything—down at Molly.  “You’re far too philosophical sometimes, but I suppose that’s your purview. I must be off.  Speaking of multiple strengths, I have to meet with a local tavern owner to discuss the stolen money he’s really only lost to gambling. Have a good day, Miss Hooper.”

“You too, Mr. Holmes,” she murmured, watching a bare branch’s fingers drag in the cold river.

Over the water’s rush, she heard him reply, “If I must.”

It was a rather annoying habit of his.

* * *

He appeared at Molly’s house right as she was setting out to visit a new mother whose infant she’d delivered the night before.  She opened the door just as he’d lifted his hand to knock.

“Mr. Holmes,” she greeted him in surprise. “Good evening.”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he shuffled from foot to foot, a pained expression on his face. She wasn’t sure, but she thought he looked almost… nervous.

And then, with a mumbled, “Take this,” he thrust something into her hands and went striding away before she could even register that he appeared to have given her a gift.

It was a book, an old one at that. Its leather spine was cracked and it had the musty smell of aged vellum and dust. Flipping carefully through its pages, Molly gasped. The text was in Latin, of which she only had a passing comprehension, but the illustrations… oh, the illustrations. Someone had painstakingly drawn depictions of human anatomy. She had to stop herself from tracing a finger over a delicate drawing showing various angles of a human heart, lest she smudge the ink.

It was when she noticed more recent, English text written in the margins, notes scrawled by another hand, that she hurried down to her garden gate. The cold, autumn moonlight gave her a surprising amount of visibility. She could just make out Holmes’ figure rounding the bend at the far end of the road.

Molly clutched the book to her (breathless) chest.

“Oh dear,” was all she could say.

* * *

She didn’t see him again for nearly a month.  She could admit to herself that she looked.  As she moved through the town, she often passed his cottage. It remained dark; its chimney gave no cheerful puffs of smoke, its windows no warm flickering of light.

Until one day they did.

A woman who continually mistook gas for labor pains had called on Molly for the third time that day. Once she had the expectant mother settled into bed with a hot toddy, Molly made the chilly trek back to her house.

Her feet crunched in the thin layer of snow that had started to fall sometime while she was convincing Mrs. Kline that her baby was still rather content in its mother’s belly. Already, an inch lay on the ground; the low hanging clouds told Molly that more would fall before morning.

She curled the folds of her cloak further around her as she walked carefully, trying not to slip. Her concentration was broken, however, she casually darted a glance at the house she so often passed.

Though curtains had been drawn, Molly could see through their cracks that there was a fire blazing in the hearth. She tried to school her expression, to stop her lips from curving into a happy smile.

Darting her eyes around to make sure no one was watching—a single woman knocking on a bachelor’s door after nightfall would not be well received, however much of a spinster the townsfolk considered her to be—even as her feet carried her to his door.

She hardly hesitated before knocking. She tried reminding the nerves dancing in her stomach that she only meant to say hello and that the visit would be completely unremarkable.

The door opened rather quickly after the last tap of her closed fist against the wood. He must have just come in from outside, himself, for drops of water clung to his black curls. He’d taken off his jacket and waistcoat, leaving him in a loose, linen shirt tucked into his breeches. She had never seen him in anything but the first stare of fashion, and this relaxed garb was a strange dichotomy to the austere man she knew him to be.

If he was surprised to find Molly standing at his door, he didn’t show it. Instead, he said, “Hello, Miss Hooper,” as he stepped to the side and invited her in with a slight wave of his hand.

Standing in the middle of his small living area, Molly glanced around her. Nearly every surface was covered with books, flasks, papers, and other oddments. A human skull sat on the mantle above his fireplace, and she had to contain her desire to hurry over and look at it.

Turning back to look at Holmes, she found him watching her. Unlike many of their earlier interactions, he seemed quite peaceful, simply waiting for her to explain her visit.

“I read the book,” she said in a rush.

The color suddenly in his cheeks might have been because it was cold outside. Or it might have been because of something else. Molly dared not hope.

“Ah,” he said, clearing his throat. “And was it informative?”

She nodded. “Very much so. The drawings are exquisite. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Holmes shuffled his feet a little, but he didn’t look upset. “Yes, I have yet to see another of its quality.”

“And you gave it to me,” she said, feeling a flicker of distress that he would part with something important to him.

He shook his head quickly before she could offer it back. “I wanted to give it to you.”

“But why?” she asked. “Surely it’s important to you?”

Now he looked even more ill at ease. Staring at a shelf, refusing to meet her eyes, he replied “Because it could be of value for you to have it.”

Molly blinked.

“You have an interest. It’s the best for learning that particular information. Really, it was the logical decision, Miss Hooper,” he said with finality.

Clearly, he didn’t care to discuss it any further, so she changed the subject.  “You’ve been gone for some time. Is all well with your family?”

He snorted, though she recognized that he wasn’t meaning to be rude to her. “Oh, yes, my mother and brother are both hale and hearty. But the purpose of my time away was not to visit family.”

“It wasn’t?”

He shook his head. “No, I was called away to lend my expertise on a matter elsewhere.”

Worried that he might see it as prying if she asked for details, instead she said, “And you’ve resolved it?”

He nodded wearily. “Prince James has been a naughty boy.”

Prince James. Molly couldn’t suppress a shiver at the thought of Holmes fanning enmity between the heir apparent and himself.

Throwing her hesitance to the wind, she stepped over to Holmes. Looking up into his face, shadowed in the dim firelight, she confided, “He terrifies me.”

Holmes didn’t offer comfort. “He should. He acts like a feudal lord, doling out services to his vassals with enough coin to engage him, at the expense of the meager peasants he steps on along the way. It’d be one thing if we were discussing run-of-the-mill corruption, but his services are far more nefarious. Meanwhile, his decrepit father sits on his throne, oblivious to the hash his son is gleefully making of the kingdom.”

“Why does it fall on you to address these wrongs?”

Sighing, he combed his fingers through his hair. “If you’re thinking I’m behaving like a knight errant, you needn’t. My services were engaged and I investigated. More and more I am finding that the prince is involved somehow in the crimes I investigate. Almost as if he is trying to get my attention.”

Cold fear was starting to take root in Molly. “Why? What would he want to get your attention?”

“He sees me as his intellectual equal, which he equates to a threat. So he wants to prove himself superior.”

“And are you his equal?” she asked.

The old, haughty Holmes returned in an instant. “Hardly. He can play his games, and I will continue to do my work. But one of us is pretending. And it’s certainly not I.” He looked questioningly at her. “Do you think he’s my equal?”

“No. Because you’re good. Don’t roll your eyes at me. Even before you confirmed to me that Prince James is a monster, every rumor and story I heard about him supported it. You, Mr. Holmes, are not a monster.”

Holmes shrugged, uncomfortable with her frank, impassioned speech.  “We’re not _that_ different and it’s important that no one underestimates him.”

She smiled and shrugged. “I’m free to make these observations. Luckily, a midwife in a tiny hamlet is far beneath the notice of princes and kings.”

“Luckily,” Sherlock agreed with a nod.

They stood there, a slightly awkward silence descending. Finally, Molly shook herself from it. “I should be off. I need rest and it’s when I’m most tired that every baby decides it wants to make its squalling entrance into the world.”

“That has absolutely no basis in logic,” Holmes corrected swottily. “Infants have no divination abilities, especially regarding how well rested you are.”

 _And now he cometh back full circle_ , Molly thought to herself.  She just rolled her eyes and said, “Of course. You’re right.”

She moved closer to the door, intent on leaving before Holmes decided to instruct her further on the vagaries of infant birth. But as she reached for the latch, she realized he was still leaning against the door.  His expression was intent, and Molly once again felt like she was some sort of puzzle to him.

“What?” With her luck, she had some mystery substance flecked on her skin and he was trying to identify it.

He only shook his head. Coming out of his stupor, he straightened away from the wooden door and made to open it.

As the snow swirled in, Molly spared a moment of regret for not wearing her gloves. She glanced once more around the warm interior of his cottage, her eyes falling on a violin resting on a tabletop, and she wondered how she had never before imagined him, eyes closed, arms and fingers flexing as he played the strings in fits of passion and arrogance and upset.

“It helps me think,” he explained, following her gaze.

“I would like to hear you play sometime.” She said shyly, feeling very forward. She felt a slight, hopeful tug in her chest when the tips of his ears reddened. His face still remained ever so serious, but he nodded.

Finally, she decided she’d let too much snow into his home and made to walk out of the door.  Holmes’ hand tentatively touching her arm drew her up short. She turned to ask him what was the matter, but her eyes widened in surprise when she saw that he was leaning rather close to her.

He cleared his throat. “If you ever want any other literature pertaining to your interests, I have some books you would find edifying.”

A deep smile spread across her face, and she beamed at him. “Thank you. And I didn’t say it before, but thank you so very much for the book you gave me, Mr. Holmes. It was wonderful.”

At first she thought she’d said something wrong. His frown had returned and he hadn’t let go of her arm.

She needn’t have worried.

“You can call me Sherlock, you know,” he murmured. His eyes searched hers before darting away to study something over her shoulder.

If felt dangerous. Not because of any of society’s strictures or any of that rubbish. She’d cast aside the expectations others had for her years ago. But if she took that leap and allowed her heart to know Sherlock’s name, she realized she’d be opening something up in herself that would be rather difficult to close again.

She wished she could still hate him.

But she heard herself whisper, “Sherlock.”

He exhaled deeply, his face a mix of uncertainty and something far more compelling. Reaching up, thrilling at her boldness, Molly danced the fingertips of one hand across his proud cheekbone. “And you should call me Molly.”

Perhaps it was a silly thing to say. Of course he knew her name. But in a way, this was a reintroduction.

His head lowered until his face was mere inches from hers. His reply was something she almost felt more than heard.  “If I must… Molly.”

She became aware of his hand cupping her neck, the roughened pad of his thumb stroking her pulse. In the dim light of the room, his silvery blue eyes were nearly black pools, and she watched in fascination as they flicked back and from meeting her gaze to looking at her lips in—she knew she wasn’t just imagining it—desire.

Just as her own eyes slipped closed, however, he stepped away from her. She became aware of cool air swirling around every point where his warmth had once reached her.

She felt a flicker of hurt that he’d pulled away, but she then realized that someone was tapping on his door. Clearing her throat she brushed at imaginary wrinkles in her dress as she stepped out of the field of vision from the door.

He watched her as he swung the door open, but finally had to tear his eyes away to identify his visitor.

“Mr. Wilkes. Shouldn’t you be in the bosom of your family on such a snowy night?”

Molly’s eyes widened when she realized that this must be one of the men from Iris Bedwyn’s wake. What could he needed. She was aware of his involvement with the prince, and she could only hope it was unrelated.

“I need your help, Holmes,” the man in question replied. He sounded far from enthused that he was seeking Sherlock’s aid.

“Not tonight.”

Wilkes’ tone changed to pleading. “It must be tonight.”

“Why?” Sherlock demanded. From where she stood, Molly could see just how little Sherlock actually cared about his visitor’s answer.

“I might not be alive tomorrow.”  Wilkes sounded tearful, and she heard him give a great sniffle.

Molly felt a stab of sympathy for the man, and Sherlock must have seen her pity, for he rolled his eyes and reach over to his greatcoat and scarf. Yanking them on, he baldly said, “You have the duration of the walk from my house to yours. Convince me.”

With a final glance at Molly, he strode out after Wilkes, his door closing behind him with a swift clap.

Molly remained still, trying to reconcile what had just happened. After only a moment, however, she, too, hurried out into the snowfall and back to the safe familiarity of her own home.

* * *

They didn’t mention what nearly transpired that night.

She would almost think he regretted it if it weren’t for that fact that they both seemed to look for any excuse to visit the other.  Molly had a ready-made one in his offer to give her access to his books. He had to be a bit more creative, if she flattered herself. She somehow doubted he truly cared about midwifery, but still he would appear at her house some nights with lists of questions about rare and strange case studies.

She sometimes wondered why she didn’t simply act a little brazen and plant a kiss on him when he was sitting next to her on her lumpy settee. But then she wondered why _he_ didn’t act a little brazen and plant a kiss on _her_ and she worked herself into circles of worry and second-guesses.

As the weather grew colder still and December shifted into January, the small town saw the arrival of almost a dozen babies. She felt like she was out every night checking on new mothers and babies, reassuring soon-to-be-parents, or otherwise dealing with the everyday minutiae that came with her work.

Sometimes, they went for periods of days without seeing each other. He would get distracted by some investigation or other, and she had patients to visit and tend.

When Molly wasn’t racing around in her capacity as the town’s midwife, she could often be found devouring the books she’d pilfered from Sherlock’s collection. If he noticed that more and more of those books seemed to find their way over to Molly’s cottage—and she was almost certain he did—he didn’t comment.  Molly was more surprised by the lack of pithy comments from his quarter than anything else.

So if Molly wasn’t content at least she was accepting of her strange relationship with Sherlock Holmes.  She relished seeing him as often as she did, and he gave no indication that he felt any differently.

And then it all crumbled out from underneath them.

Up to the last day, Sherlock insisted to Molly that, while he was indeed a threat, Prince James’ reach had yet to extend to their town in any way more than as a laughable joke. Molly had almost believed him.

On their last night together, they sat close together in front of a warm fire at Sherlock’s house. He had just returned from several nights spent consulting on a kidnapping case. Pleased with how it had gone, once he had extolled his brilliance to her, he had been content to sit beside her as she quietly flipped through a book filled with medicinal receipts.

“I am not sure why so many of these call for monkshood,” Molly murmured, turning from page to page and pointing to reiterate. “It’s so toxic. My mother had several women overdose, trying to ease the pain of childbirth. I have done my best to discourage its use, but I know some of them still drink tinctures of it before I arrive because they know I’ll prohibit it.”

Sherlock hummed, thinking. “I’ve yet to see a person who’s died from aconite poisoning. If one of yours does shuffle off, do let me know.”

Molly elbowed him in the belly and then continued on as if he hadn’t spoken. “Of course, Doctor Morgenstern uses dwale. Hemlock is just as bad. But you don’t want to cause undue pain.” She craned her neck so she could see more of his face, he was sitting so close to her. “You study chemistry. Do you have any idea of what could work instead?”

“I’ve heard some men are experimenting with nitrogen and oxygen combinations, which they think could have sedative effects.” He shrugged. “If not that, there’s always opium.”

Molly nodded, thinking, before she turned to a new recipe. Just as she was about to ask Sherlock if he had made many of these remedies for experiment’s sake, a knock sounded on the door.  She straightened in alarm and scrambled to her feet.

Sherlock was only a little more leisurely in rising, but a frown marred his face. “Sheriff Lestrade. It’s his knock.”

Molly nodded and made her way soundlessly to the hinged side of the door. She’d only had to hide there once since Wilkes’ mysterious visit, and she wryly thought that alone should annoy her into action securing Sherlock’s affections. Or perhaps just risk censure from all of the priggish townsfolk and freely enter and exit his cottage and invite him to do the same at hers.

That night, however, she stood there, blocked from view as he released the latch and opened the door far enough to look polite(well, polite for Sherlock) but not overly welcoming.

“Sheriff. It’s awfully late, isn’t it?” he drawled,

Even with a three-inch thick plank of wood blocking her view, Molly didn’t need to see Lestrade to hear the trepidation in his voice. “Good evening, Sherlock.”

A pregnant pause, and then Sherlock spoke again. “Oh, get on with it, Lestrade. What’s wrong?”

The sheriff sighed. “Viscount Ainsley has requested that we arrest you for the kidnapping of his son.”

Molly contained a noise of distress, but only just.

“Ainsley? He thanked me for the recovery of his son only this morning. Why the change of story? What is his proof?” Sherlock asked, affecting a bored air, though Molly could see his grip on the door had turned white-knuckled.

She imagined Lestrade, tried to picture his face as he carried out this task. She knew it pained him, but she couldn’t quell the stab of betrayal she felt. Not that he was aware of any relationship between Sherlock and Molly, but it felt like Lestrade was harming Sherlock.

“I wasn’t given any information.  All I know is that a rider arrived at my door an hour ago and demanded that I arrest you.”

“Very well,” Sherlock said simply. “I politely decline.” He bowed mockingly and started to swing the door shut, but Molly heard the smack of Lestrade’s staying palm against the wood.

“Sherlock, I am afraid it’s by order of the king.”

Molly could contain herself no longer. Sherlock was just standing there, a look of stunned realization on his face.  She jerked the door further open and, ignoring Lestrade’s surprise at her sudden appearance, muscled her way in front of her friend.

“By order of the king? You mean the mad one whose son has developed a personal vendetta against Sherlock? That king? Oh, yes, I can see why you’d blindly toe his line.”

She knew her voice was edging on hysteria. But why wasn’t Sherlock defending himself? Why was he just _standing_ there?

“Miss Hooper, what the devil are you doing here?” The sheriff seemed to be having trouble putting the facts together.

Not bothering to answer his question, Molly said, “You can’t take him. I won’t let you.”

“Molly…” Sherlock warned.

“No, if you won’t defend yourself, I will.” She widened her stance, not sure what she’d do if the sheriff tried to remove her.

“I don’t _want_ to, Miss Hooper. My hands are tied.” Lestrade still looked like he was trying to figure out what was going on, but

She snorted. “With spun-gold rope? Were you paid off?”

Lestrade looked like she’d slapped him. She knew he prided himself on his honesty and integrity, but she was starting to see white spots in her rage, and icy rivulets of panic began jolting up and down her spine.

She whirled on Sherlock when he placed a hand on her shoulder. “And you, you’re just standing there! Why would you do that? Why are you just letting him think you’re guilty?” Angry tears began splashing out of her eyes, and she only wanted to return to five minutes ago when she was curled up beside Sherlock and thinking of nothing more complicated than deadly remedies.

“Molly,” Sherlock said again, squeezing her shoulder. “He has to. It’d be treason if he goes against the king’s orders. He’ll be hanged.”

“So you’re forfeiting your life instead?” she raged. “Because I don’t believe for a moment that the prince will let you live. Why are you being so bloody noble about this?”

He looked at her sadly. “I don’t believe he will let me live. But I must go with Lestrade. I will try to win a private audience with the king. Perhaps I can convince him of my innocence without James’ poisonous influence.”

Her nails cut into the skin of her palm as she looked back at Sherlock. “And if you can’t convince the king?”

He regarded her silently for several beats, his eyes the most beautiful and the most heartbreaking she’d ever seen, before he simply said, “I love you.”

She felt like he’d struck her, especially when he eased her aside and nodded to the sheriff.  She cried viciously as she watched Lestrade and two members of the Watch lead Sherlock away.  Once her cries died down and the numbness set in, she lay down on the settee in front of the fire and watched its flames cheerfully dance away to embers.

Somehow, she drifted off into a dreamless sleep.  She next woke to the sound of the door softly opening and closing. The fire had long since died, and in the pitch black, she could only make out an indistinct shadow moving about the room.

Looking around as fear began coursing through her, Molly’s fingers finally closed around the heavy book of medical remedies.  She threw it with all her might at the invader and felt a moment of terrified triumph as it connected.

Until the invader let loose several imaginative curses.

“Sh—Sherlock?” she stuttered. Before he could answer in the affirmative, Molly was across the room and in his arms, holding him so tightly she briefly worried she might be cutting off his air.

His arms banded around her, though he didn’t sound happy. “Why did you throw _that_ book? There was a nice, light collection of prose on the table directly in front of you. You should know; it’s your copy.”

“Oh, I’m terribly sorry that the man I saw hauled off by the sheriff, supposedly going to his death, scared the life out of me,” she said waspishly. “I should have thought through my terrified reaction better.”

His long fingers smoothed across her neck, seeking her pulse.  “You’re heartbeat is slightly elevated, but not enough to kill you.”

Molly growled lowly before she pulled away from Sherlock and went where she knew he kept some candles. Once she’d lit a tinder stick on a struggling ember and brought it to the candle’s wick, she turned back to face him.

“Why did Lestrade let you go? Isn’t he concerned about his own safety?”

Sherlock strode over to his wardrobe and began yanking clothes out of it and stuffing them into a small canvas sack. As he folded clothes that had gotten mussed when he pulled them out, he spoke lowly and quickly. 

“Lestrade didn’t let me go. I overpowered him and his two hired lackeys and circled back home, taking a few detours. I’m surprised they haven’t been here, but I imagine they are searching your house first. My apologies.”

“Then why did you go with him in the first place?” she questioned him as she followed him around the room with the candle, watching as he tossed a few items into his sack. Then her foggy brain caught up with her. “Ah, so he could possibly escape punishment for refusing to apprehend you.”

Sherlock lifted his hands in a surprisingly helpless gesture. “It was all I could do.”

“I know,” she soothed. “What now?”

“Prince James needs to be stopped. I can’t do it here, clearly. His power has finally oozed its way into our little town and it’s not safe for me to remain.”

She watched silently for a moment before asking, “How did he get word from the viscount and convince the king to send orders for your arrest so quickly? You only solved the kidnapping case this morning.”

Finished with his bag, Sherlock began pulling on several layers of clothing over those that he already wore.

“Think about it, Molly. There was no way the Viscount would have had time for any of that. The whole thing was a set up, and the prince only had to wait for me to step into his snare.”

He was only confirming what she already knew, but the dread that had engulfed her earlier began to build again.  To distract herself, she said, “What else do we need? I’ll need to get my things from my house, but it should be quick.”

Sherlock slowly straightened and looked at her. “We?” he asked carefully.

“I’m coming with you.” How could he miss this most obvious truth?

But he was already shaking his head. “Molly, no. You must stay here.”

“Why?” she challenged.

“Because it’s safer. Because I don’t want the prince to find out what you… mean. To me.” When she opened her mouth to protest, he held up a hand. “I hate myself for how tempted I am to let you come with me, for just how selfish I could be if I let myself. I can’t have that. My mind needs to be pure with my purpose.”

His reasoning was sound and wonderful, but Molly still had to swipe away tears that stubbornly fell down her face. It felt like she was losing him to death or something worse all over again, all in the matter of a few hours. But she had to be strong.

“What do you need?” she asked.

He moved to her, dropping his sparsely-packed bag onto the floor. He wrapped her in his arms once more. This time, there was no hesitance as he covered her lips and kissed her with fury. In that lone kiss, it seemed to her she could taste all of the longing that they shared. In just the press of their lips and bodies, it felt like her heart was sighing and saying, “Finally.”

She wept for it.

All too soon, regretfully, he drew back, Answering her earlier question he whispered, “You.”

* * *

Two minutes later, he stood in front of his open door, backlit by the dim night sky. He stood staring at her, drinking in her features, and she responded in kind.

He murmured a goodbye and turned to leave, when she called after him. “Sherlock. Could you please do something for me? Please?”

He looked back to her. If she didn’t know him, didn’t know his beloved face, she would have thought him impervious to her pleas. But she did know him.  And so she waited.

“What would you ask of me, Molly?”

She’d never plead before, for anything. But she didn’t feel vulnerable doing so now. “Please be careful. Please. Please, be so careful and come back to me?”

He reached out to cup her face in both of his hands and press a kiss to her forehead.  He murmured, “If I must,” his words muffled against her skin.

Molly felt a tear dribble off of her chin. “If you must, you’ll come back to me?” she teased, giving a wobbly smile when he drew back enough to look at her face.

The corner of his mouth kicked up in that familiar, frustrating, and beloved half-smile. “I was referring to the ‘be careful’ directive. As to the other, impractical and fanciful as it is—considering our mortality and the overwrought sentiment of it—I find myself compelled to tell you that I’ll always come back to you.”

She thought he would leave as soon as he said something so vulnerable, but instead, they remained in her doorway, the sad smiles dropping from their faces. She wasn’t sure how long they stood there, not saying a word, just looking at each other. 

And then with short nod and a turn, he let go her and walked out of his small cottage, making his way out onto the road.

It was only six weeks later that Molly Hooper received word of Sherlock Holmes’ death.

It was only two, arduous years later that she found herself engaged to Prince James.

* * *

x

* * *

 


	2. Once I had a Partner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now that is done

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all! Here we are again. Thank you for your patience and willingness to wait, because this took longer than even I anticipated. And considering the fact that I’m a sloth, that is saying something. 
> 
> Thank you so much everyone who has read, favorited, bookmarked, followed, subscribed, and reviewed the first chapter. To the guests to whom I couldn’t extend my thanks personally, thank you so much!
> 
> Thanks as ever to my soul twin, Broomy for the beta reading and work that she put in to help me with this chapter. I’ve really been fretting about it and I appreciate her advice so much.
> 
> Chapter title is from Bonnie Prince Billy's "New Whaling".
> 
> I hope everyone enjoys this chapter!

* * *

**Chapter Two: Once I Had a Partner**

* * *

When Sherlock died, the grief Molly felt came in two very different forms: the first was that clean stab of loss that continues to ache in spite of changes in mood, weather, or time. The second was the grief she felt for herself. Selfishly, she mourned for the reality that never gave way to fantasy; a reality that only set in harder with each passing minute in the time after his death.

If she were a believer in the fairness of life, she would have railed against the fates for giving her something only to strip it from her hands before her fingers could close around it. If she were pious, she may have taken it as a lesson from which she must learn. If she were indifferent, she could have shrugged and moved on.

Instead, she believed in sciences far too elemental and felt far too much to find comfort, personal salvation, or apathy in what happened to Sherlock Holmes. So she grieved for him as she grieved for the newfound ache in her heart.

All she could do with his death, then, was plan. At first, she didn’t quite know what for. She’d never before felt such a piercing anger and deciding how she would soothe that ire only confused her more. And then, suddenly, the answer came to her: she may not possess the mind of Sherlock Holmes, but perhaps she could use that to her advantage.

It was like shooting an arrow in the dark toward a slim target, but she had to try.

She allowed herself only twelve hours of tears after Sheriff Lestrade broke the news of Sherlock’s death to her. Sitting in front of an empty fire grate, she cried for the man who had left to find answers but found only his grave. By the end of that single, painful day, her hands had stiffened from her white-knuckled grip on her skirts as she fought to subdue her body’s shuddering. Numbly, Molly stared at her fingers as she flexed and bent them, trying to restore feeling and movement.

Early the next day, she reemerged from her cottage. Though some might have described her appearance as wan, to anyone watching she merely looked tired. Certainly not bereft.

With forced determination, she resumed her midwife duties, though her interest in it had diminished. She began training an apprentice in an effort to lessen some of her burden. The new midwife proved fortuitous, as Molly quickly found that even the time she used to take for patients was not her own.

Someone discovered the local cleric dead at his church pulpit that she realized that, while her loss of Sherlock was a deeply personal one, the town would also suffer for his absence. No one was trying to identify why or how such a fate befell the unfortunate priest. Her mind made up—warring with a combination of melancholy and nervous excitement—she let herself into Sherlock’s cottage at the end of a long day spent tending to expectant and new mothers.

She sat on the floor in front of his many shelves of books. By the light of a weak, candle flame, Molly flipped through a physics tome and wished she could speak more than conversational Latin. Guiltily, she picked up a quill and dipped it into a pot of ink that she had retrieved from a nearby table. It felt wrong to deface a book so, but she had to translate what she could.

Just as she had gathered her nerve and touched the blackened nib to the vellum, a sound startled her, making her drop her quill. Later, she would curse the intruder for the ink stain on her skirt; at the time, she was too startled to notice.

The door swung open and a thin man stepped into the room. He eyed Molly and she looked back at him, her mind racing with any number of scenarios, excuses, and fears even as she looked him over, trying to discern his identity. His dark hair was thinning on top, and his clothing was fashionable and well made. Someone of wealth, then. Beyond that, she had no idea.

“Dear me. I could have sworn that this cottage was the property of someone else,” he said mildly, stepping into the room and shutting the door firmly behind him. Though his tone was light, Molly felt like an insect, pinned to a corkboard by his gaze. “What a strange happenstance to find the town midwife making herself at home within its walls.”

She furiously tried to remember if she’d met this stranger before, but her position in the town meant that she encountered any number of people without proper introduction. And this was different. Not only had she been caught out breaking into another person’s home, but her discoverer’s calculating gaze left her feeling adrift and even more nervous.

“I’m terribly sorry,” she tried, patting a pile of books beside her. “I lent these to Mr. Holmes and was worried they would get lost when his family comes to sort out his cottage. I will be on my way now.”

The stranger merely quirked an eyebrow. “Rather kind of you to lend them to him. A long-term loan, I dare say, considering most of those are from the Holmes family library. You must age very well, indeed, since I read three of those as a boy.”

“You’re Mycroft Holmes,” Molly breathed, feeling a strange dissociation at seeing someone so closely related to Sherlock, alive and clearly quite well.

He nodded.

The brothers looked completely different. Though a similar, dark brown, Sherlock’s hair was a mad mop of curl where Mycroft Holmes’ was fine and straight. Sherlock had such proud cheekbones, while his brother’s face was less sharp, his nose larger, his lips thinner. Perhaps they shared a similar height, but Mycroft stood leaning on a cane, though it appeared to be an affectation.

There was no comfort of identical appearance to be found.

Until she noticed Mycroft’s eyes. They, too, were blue. Different enough to be distinguishable, but nonetheless, as she caught the light color of his irises in the straining light, Molly was engulfed with a fresh surge of heartache. Her throat burned with it, and she had to look down, to hide her vulnerability from those intruding eyes that shared filial color with Sherlock’s.

She coughed, shuffling those damned books into a neater pile. “I am so terribly sorry to hear about your brother, Mr. Holmes. Forgive my intrusion. I will leave.” Standing, she gave her skirt a shaky, perfunctory brush and made for the door, moving around Sherlock’s brother.

Holmes’ voice stopped her just as she reached for the latch. “Miss Hooper?”

“Yes?” she asked, looking back at him.

His back was still to her, and he didn’t turn around. “Don’t forget your books.”

Molly stared. Beyond a periodic popping hiss from the flickering candle, they shared a silence that for some, strange reason had fresh tears pooling in her eyes.

“What—“ she started to reply.

“They’ll serve you well,” he interrupted, and then added nothing further.

Since it was clear that he wouldn’t be turning to her, Molly pried her tense fingers from around the latch and hurried back past him. When she once again faced him, she wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but his expression was as calm and placid as when he’d first walked into the cottage.

“How do you know that they’ll be beneficial for me?” she asked.

Instead of answering her question, Mycroft sighed and said, as if she hadn’t spoken, “The cottage will remain in my care for some time. I’ve made no decision whether to keep or sell it, but so long as I own it, you are free to return if you think of anything else that you might need for your education.”

Astonished by this strange show of generosity—how could he possibly know?—Molly could only nod. She rushed forward to retrieve the books, gathering them to her chest and hoping he couldn’t see how tightly she hugged them to her.

As she returned to the cottage door and pulled it open, she mumbled a thank you to Mycroft Holmes and hurried away from his unsettling company.

* * *

* * *

When she was a child, Molly had watched in awe as her father drew her a little book of illustrations. Each page had required painstaking detail, and he’d only complete one page a night. It took him nearly a half a year to complete all of his drawings. Once done, though, he stacked all of the pages together and showed his only child how to run her thumb down the papers’ edges, quickly flipping past each page. She’d watched, delighted, as her father’s drawings of a small bird came to life. Through the span of each, lovingly drawn page in quick succession, the bird hopped across the ground before taking to the air.

She’d never thought of it until the inevitability of growing older and losing the people she loved began to set in, but somewhere in those moments, Molly realized that time was lot like her beloved little flip book. Each day took effort, and weeks often felt slow and ponderous. But then, when she looked from the perspective of months and years later, those days and weeks seemed to flutter by as if a thumb were pulling at their edges.

Which was how she found herself nearly two years later, feeling wind-whipped by how quickly everything had passed by.

* * *

Pounding on the door of her cottage had Molly’s eyes snapping open one late-summer night. She hurried out of bed, pulling a caftan over her as she navigated around various pieces of furniture by memory; she realized as she set to opening her door, that she ought to have lit a lamp before greeting whomever might be outside.

Too late, she thought to herself with a shrug. It wasn’t as if there was much mystery as to who might require her presence long before the cockerel’s crow. Birth, death, death and birth played a steady loop through Molly Hooper’s days and nights.

She peered into the cool night, seeing the face of one of the town’s Watch, his face illuminated by the eerily bright moon.

“Miss Hooper,” he greeted, sounding agitated. “The sheriff requires you. Quickly.”

Molly opened the door a bit further. “Where does he need me?”

“Brian Lukis has been murdered. Do you know his estate?”

Nodding, Molly said, “Yes, of course. Please give me a moment to dress and then we can go there.”

After seeing to it that her caller was amenable to remaining outside, she pulled a fresh chemise over her head and set to tying the laces of her kirtle up her sides as she tried to shake herself into alertness. As she knotted the lacing, she tried to remember if she’d had any prior dealings with Brian Lukis in either of her capacities, but she could think of none.

The Watchman proved unhelpful when she questioned him as they hurried out of the town proper and toward Lukis’ grounds.

The purportedly dead man lived in one of the few castles that still played host to inhabitants, most landed gentry eager to move to warmer country houses. Lukis lingered stubbornly, insisting that he liked being situated in a grand house that had sights of each of his tenants’ cottages.

“You truly don’t know what this concerns?” Molly tried again as they walked up the final path to the small castle.

“No,” the man said again, trying to disguise the edge of annoyance in his tone at her inability to stop asking questions. But then, just as Molly was about to hurry into the castle’s inner courtyard, he rushed to add, “But it’s very grave. Sheriff Lestrade is nervous about something.” He looked like he regretted revealing even that vulnerability in the county sheriff.

Molly tried to adopt a placating tone. “Then I will be sensitive and not make any jokes about castles clearly not being that secure.”

She attempted a cajoling smile at the man, but he only shook his head and pointed her toward one of the ground level doors. “They’re just up the stairs, in the first floor great room.”

As she walked to the indicated entrance, Molly couldn’t help but notice that there were rather a lot of men milling about,. Most of them wore back and breast plates; unusual garb for those in a landlord’s employ. They certainly weren’t any of the Watchmen, with whom Molly was passingly acquainted.

She shrugged and continued on, arriving in the great room. The sudden onslaught of bright light after being in the early morning dark only seconds prior made her squint until her eyes adjusted.

Sconces blazed along the walls and a fire crackled in the stone fireplace at the end of the room. The light proved a strange dichotomy to the somber tone of everyone standing in the room. Molly searched for a familiar face before finding the back of Sheriff Lestrade’s head where he stood in a group with several other men.

Hurrying to them, she could just see vague shape of a body lying on the floor from between the men’s feet.

Spotting her, Sheriff Lestrade made his way to where she stood. “Miss Hooper, thank you for coming. It’s a nasty business. We’re fairly certain we’ve established how Mr. Lukis died, but we wanted some help ascertaining how a few things happened. In fact, your presence was requested. You’ve quite a reputation, it would appear.”

“In town?” Molly asked, confused.

“Further abroad, actually.” Lestrade fidgeted, looking more and more uncomfortable by the second.

“Who requested me?” Molly peered at the men, most of whom were ignoring the goings-on between sheriff and midwife.

“I did,” a man’s voice came silkily from behind her. She turned quickly to see a gentleman of moderate height smiling at her charmingly.

The sound of furious shuffling behind her had Molly glancing back over her shoulder in time to see everyone in the room bowing. A cold block of ice settled low in her belly as she turned back to greet the new arrival. Lowering herself into a curtsy, she allowed herself the insolence of meeting eyes with the man who could only be the Crown Prince, James.

“Your Highness,” she murmured. “Forgive me. I did not realize—“

The prince laughed, his voice light and friendly. “Of course you didn’t. No need for apologies or to stand on ceremony. Please rise, everyone. Your sheriff is right, Miss Hooper. I did request your attendance. Mr. Lukis was a dear friend of mine.” He came closer to her as he waved dismissively in the direction of the body. “I was visiting him and had the misfortune of finding him thusly two hours ago. I want to leave no stone unturned as we try to find whoever did this to such a good man. I heard a recent story from Peddler’s Heath about a man whose death you studied. It helped to catch his killer.”

Though she seethed with dislike for him, not fooled by his charming façade, Molly forced a guileless expression and nodded toward Lukis’ body. “I’m flattered that you thought of me. I find it important to assist however I can. Would you please describe how you found Mr. Lukis?”

As he led them over to the prone mane on the floor, James explained, “He was dead when I found him. I had trouble sleeping so I was walking, trying to bore myself into tiredness. I came in here and there he was, the poor thing. No longer struggling, but it was obvious he fought to live.”

Molly cleared her throat. “Pardon me, Your Highness. I should have phrased that differently. Though it does help me to know he was already dead. But has anyone moved him since then? I like to know what position his body was in on the ground.”

“Oh, of course,” the prince laughed, before adopting a sober expression again. “I did try to shake him, to see if it would revive him. But then I saw the blood and realized I was too late. I sent one of my guards to fetch the sheriff immediately after.” He frowned in thought. “It’s all such a blur, I must admit. I was quite distraught, but I believe he lay facing this same direction, but his eyes were toward the door. It’s why I thought he still lived.”

Crouching down, Molly looked up at him. “And when did you last see Mr. Lukis alive?”

James puffed out his cheeks with a deep breath, as if trying to recall a difficult riddle. “We supped late last night. I believe I retired to my room shortly before midnight. Mr. Lukis said he had some correspondence to finish and would follow suit not long after.”

“This is going to be difficult,” she said, trying to sound gentle, though she didn’t believe for a second that James was even remotely traumatized by what had transpired. “Was Mr. Lukis warm or cool to the touch when you shook him?”

“I think he was warm, but I’m not positive.” Though he grimaced, his face wiped clean immediately after. He observed her coolly and his face betrayed nothing.

Molly nodded and surveyed the area, skirting around a pool of congealed blood. The cheerfully flickering light on the red looked macabre, but the fact that the angry scarlet hadn’t yet turned brown was just one more hint for her to follow.

Moving her hand to the dead man’s wrist, she lifted his arm from the ground. Slight stiffening in the limb made it difficult, but not impossible. While she held his arm aloft, she peered at its underside, pushing his sleeve up further. No blood pooling there yet, either, she noted.

“I feel fairly confident to say that this man only died within the last three hours. Rigor Mortis is a phenomenon where chemical changes in the dying muscle cause the body stiffen temporarily. It typically sets in two to four hours post-mortem, and it is only now presenting itself.” She demonstrated the range of movement still present in the corpse. “Combined with what you’ve told me, Your Highness, I think we can significantly narrow down Mr. Lukis’ time of death.”

The prince continued to watch her, his eyes dark in spite of the brightly lit room. Molly fought a shiver, thinking to herself that the brown irises were actually quite similar to the color of old blood that she’d yet to observe on the body between them.

“And you agree that the knife wound is what killed him?” he asked.

Molly returned her gaze to the body, glad for the excuse to look away. The blood on the man’s clothing did indeed correspond with a large wound centered near the chest. But not within close enough proximity to the heart to convince her.

She looked up at Sheriff Lestrade. “Is it alright if I roll him over?”

The sheriff nodded, hurrying to assist her. “What are you looking for?” he asked as she moved out of the way, settling the body where she’d previously crouched.

Molly shrugged. “No stone unturned.”

There was nothing remarkable about the back of Brian Lukis’ corpse, at least not at first. Any blood on his torso had dripped from his front, and there were no visible stab wounds. But something was bothering her as she surveyed the dead man. She flicked her eyes from his shoes to the top of his head and back again, before she returned to the man’s grey hair. There was blood matted there.

At first glance, the blood where his head had lain coalesced with the pool that had formed from his chest wound. But on closer inspection of the puddle, Molly found several strands of hair. Returning to the body, she found a small bald patch and an angry, purpling area where the skin hadn’t broken. But where it had broken was a mess of blood, bone fragment, and other, viscus material.

“Miss Hooper?” Lestrade urged.

“No, Sheriff,” she said, tilting Lukis’ head so she could peel back an eyelid. Seeing the blown pupil, she looked up at him and Prince James. “I don’t think the knife wound killed him.”

As she lowered the eyelid, she remembered the prince mentioning the direction of Lukis’ gaze when he entered the room. They were closed, at least when she arrived. Anyone could have lowered the lids, it was true, but her unease around the prince had her assuming the worst. She glanced up at him from under her lashes. His clothing was unmussed and clean, and his hands showed no traces of blood.

Shaking it off, Molly resumed her study, undoing the lacing of Lukis’ tunic and getting her first look at the knife injury. “Did anyone find the weapon that was used to stab him?” she asked.

“Yes, it was lying beside his body,” Sheriff Lestrade supplied.

She continued to look over the victim’s torso even as she held out a hand. “May I please see it?”

Someone placed an oilcloth in her hand. In its folds was a knife. Uneager to get more of Lukis’ blood on her hands than necessary, Molly kept the cloth wrapped around the hilt as she studied the blade as she used a clean corner of the victim’s vest in a vain attempt to examine the wound. Though it accomplished little, she was at least able to see the angle of the blade’s entry into the body.

The hilt of the knife was one designed for a particular grip, and she compared it to entry site of the wound.

“From what I can tell, Mr. Lukis’ attacker was likely left handed, and stabbed him from the front. Because there’s little sign of a struggle, such as scratched-off skin under his fingernails, I believe he knew his attacker, or at least didn’t feel threatened by him.”

Movement out of the corner of her eye had Molly looking yet again at the prince. He had brought his hands up, clasping them together while looking politely interested at her words. “Very good,” he drawled. “Almost equal to Sherlock Holmes.”

“You knew him, Your Highness?” she asked, trying to keep her breathing even and her attention nonchalant.

He smiled. On the surface it was an affable grin, but beneath that amiability was something far more chilling. “Oh yes, he and I were good friends.”

Liar, she thought even as she offered him a weak smile in return. “He was an admirable man.”

“As far as I can tell, he was just that: a man,” the prince said with a shrug. “But he certainly had a way with people. You didn’t know him? Surely, you must have taken some training from him.”

Molly shifted, hoping she didn’t look too uncomfortable. “He provided me some literature on the topic of anatomy and death studies before he departed, but we did not know each other well, no.” She avoided looking at Sheriff Lestrade, who stayed mercifully silent throughout the exchange.

Prince James offered her a moue of feigned regret. “Pity. His death was not happy one, from what I’ve heard, but it’s a glad thing that you were able to fill his role. Your work outside of your village is how I heard of you. You’re gaining quite a lot of admiration, yourself, Miss Hooper.”

Ducking her head, she offered a demure, “Thank you, You Highness,” pleased she could keep her voice from shaking with anger.

He continued to watch her. In his stare, there wasn’t in any facsimile of admiration or attraction, but there was something about her that intrigued him, and she couldn’t tell what it was.

Molly’s skin itched with her desire to get away, but she made herself sit still and continue to look back at the prince.

Finally, James looked away, clapping his hands together. “Well, I believe Miss Hooper has given us plenty of information to find the beast who did this to Mr. Lukis. We thank you for your help. The head of my guardsmen will escort you home and discuss your fee for your assistance.”

At the prince’s words, a man separated himself from the group of others standing in the far corner of the room. He strode forward and gave Molly a sharp bow and waved an arm toward the same door Molly had entered earlier.

“See her home safely, Moran,” Prince James instructed. “She’s a valuable asset to her town.” And turning back to her, “Until next time, Miss Hooper.”

She darted a look over to Sheriff Lestrade, who had added nothing for quite some time. He stood behind James, looking at the prince’s back with a slight curl of his lip, but he quickly covered it with a thin smile and nod to Molly.

Feeling somehow bolstered, Molly shuffled into a parting curtsy and hurried down the steps and back into the night air.

This guardsman, Moran, remained rather quiet as they walked down the misty road, turning lighter blue in the predawn light. Somehow, he made her even more ill at ease than the prince, if that was possible. Molly focused on the sounds of her feet on the dirt road, just wanting to be home in her bed; just wanting Sherlock and not this strange place where the men who had to be responsible for his death were calling on her, trying to appeal to her intelligence and win her over for some reason.

“A woman who’s not afraid of death,” Moran mused, breaking Molly from her reverie.

She smiled uncomfortably, having hoped she could avoid any conversation with him. “I am a midwife as well. I’d seen my share of death before I ever took over the responsibilities as Mistress in the Art of Death.”

Moran laughed gaily, alarmingly loud and dropping his head back with mirth. “Quite a title for such a small thing.”

“Death is a small thing…. Sir?” she asked, remembering to tack on a moniker of respect at the last second.

“Of course it is. Though I was referring to you. That said, wouldn’t you agree that a person who puts too much weight on his own mortality is doomed to live an unhappy life?”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean I don’t respect death. It needs to be understood, because it strips something very important from the people left behind.”

“A small matter in their own, fleeting lives,” he chuckled. “It seems an odd pursuit on which you could waste your precious time, miss. You too will die; any day could be your last.”

Molly acknowledged the stabs of alarm that were sounding in her mind as they moved down the road. Clearly, this man was just one more facet of evil that Prince James’ power represented. But alone with Moran as she was, the only thing she could do was increase her pace and sigh in relief when she finally spotted her cottage, dark and waiting for her.

“I suppose it’s my time to waste, and if it offers some comfort to the living, then it’s worthwhile.” She fluttered her hands, indicating the space behind her. “My cottage is just in sight, so you really need not escort me any further, Mr. Moran. I am sure you are weary after an interrupted sleep. Thank you for your company.”

She started edging away from him, but fumbled her bag and tried unsuccessfully to stop it from falling. Just before it hit the ground, though, Moran leaned forward and caught it with his left hand. He straightened and offered it to her. As she took it from him, Molly noticed dark speckles of… something on the cuff of his white blouse, before he withdrew his arm and stepped away from her.

Priding herself on her lack of reaction, Molly met the man’s eyes and gave him a parting smile and murmured thanks before hurrying away from him.

She didn’t relax until she was inside the cottage, turning the ward lock into place.

* * *

The prince stayed on at Brian Lukis’ estate. In the two months that followed Lukis’ death, Molly encountered James on three separate occasions. Each time did nothing to allay her distaste and nervousness. But the advantage of her experience with any number of unsavory patients meant that she managed to keep her hatred of the man to herself. She recognized that anything else would be suicide.

When she encountered Lestrade at the market after her third run-in with the prince, she confronted the sheriff as diplomatically as she could manage.

“I can’t help but notice that His Highness has made himself present at every consultation I’ve made in the past seven weeks. Have you been inviting him to observe?”

Instead of answering immediately, Sheriff Lestrade looked around at all of the market goers before placing a hand on Molly’s arm and guiding her into the shadow of an empty stall. “Why do you ask?” he asked her cautiously.

She shrugged, suddenly uncomfortable. “I am just surprised that any of these deaths have been of interest to him. Brian Lukis, I understood to a degree. The rest were clearly the result of natural causes.”

“I am not sure what his motivation is.” Lestrade rubbed the back of his neck, hesitant to continue. “He requested that I notify him of any deaths that might involve your consultation.”

“Just cases involving me?”

He shrugged, looking more like he was shaking off something than expressing confusion. “He said that he found your expertise to be informative.”

Molly stared at her feet, trying to ignore the pounding in her temple. “I’m not sure what more I can show him. Would it be possible to call on him only if we encounter another mysterious death?”

But Lestrade was already shaking his head before she finished her question. He dropped his voice to an ever further undertone. “I have reason to believe that he’s tracking the movements of us all, including the Watch.”

“Like we’re criminals?” she asked.

“As I said, Miss Hooper, I do not pretend to understand his motivation.”

Molly nodded. “Is there someone watching us now?”

Again, Lestrade looked around. “Yes. There’s a man standing by the apple stall five meters away. In fact, we had best go on our way. We would likely not care for the repercussions if the prince were to suspect us of conspiring.”

As soon as he said, it, Lestrade looked like he’d been struck, horrified that he’d spoken the words aloud. Before Molly could move her lips in response, he shook his head at her once, sharply.

She blinked slowly in understanding. Raising her voice a bit, trying to sound conversational, Molly instead said, “I will pay a visit to your sister tomorrow, Sheriff. I am sure she is fine, but she will appreciate your concern.”

Gratefully, he nodded to her. She gave him a weak wave and turned to walk away. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she heard him whisper, “Be careful” as she walked into the crowd of villagers.

Molly didn’t acknowledge it. She knew everything she did would require caution moving forward.

And now she would have to call on Lestrade’s very confused sister.

* * *

The next day, Molly made her way to a home visit of a woman expecting her eighth child. She walked the familiar road with little thought for her steps. She’d delivered all seven of Mrs. Gilbraith’s older children and had advised the woman to discuss some family planning techniques with her husband. It had fallen on deaf ears.

Rounding a corner onto a narrower lane, Molly was torn from her thoughts when she found herself directly in front of Prince James and several of his guardsmen, Moran included. Her heart fluttered in her chest in alarm, but she smiled feebly.

He moved his mouth into what might have looked like a genial grin on anyone else, but never to Molly.

Curtsying, she greeted him. “Your Highness. I did not expect to see you here. I trust that you are having a good day?”

“Miss Hooper. What a pleasure. Are you on your way to perform another of your delightful studies of death?”

Delightful. Nausea tried to settle in her belly, but she wouldn’t allow it. “No, actually. My other duties demand my attention today. I serve as one of two midwives in town.”

“Fascinating,” he drawled, looking anything but intrigued.

They stood there in silence, Molly avoiding meeting his dark eyes while he kept his fixed unsettlingly on her.

“Well, I had best be on my way. I am expected at my next appointment,” she finally said, trying to edge around the prince and his guard.

“Please allow me to escort you,” James said, shuffling into a bow that was some strange combination of solicitous and mocking.

Good god, no. “Oh, please, I wouldn’t want to send you out of your way. I’m heading in the direction you’ve just come from. But I thank you.”

James smirked. “I insist.” He straightened and turned on his heel, holding out his arm expectantly with an arched brow directed over his shoulder at her.

Resigned, she complied, resting as little of her fingertips as possible on the brocade of his coat.

They walked only a few steps before the prince said conversationally, “You’re an uncommonly intelligent young woman.”

“I merely try my hardest to learn what I can, Your Highness, but I thank you.” She wasn’t sure he meant it as a compliment.

He looked ahead, rather bored of it, though she supposed some might mistake his expression for contemplative. “I would think you’d be quite a coup for the right man. One wonders how such a woman has not found herself wedded, bedded, with a squalling babe at her breast.”

Molly came to an abrupt stop, shock warring with disgust over his frank speaking. “What?” Her voice was tight. She could not manage polite request for clarification, though she congratulated herself for not snapping out something even more unforgivably stupid.

The prince did not look chagrinned. He didn’t express confusion at her indignation. He most certainly did not apologize.

No. He laughed.

“Good. Good,” he chided. “There just isn’t enough anger in this forsaken place. Anger is what keeps you from being ordinary, Miss Hooper. I suggest you embrace it. Beyond my plain speaking, what makes you angry, I wonder? It’s not your spinsterhood. No, it’s something else.”

He started circling around her, a cat toying with its prey.

Molly stared straight ahead, queasy and seething. “I am afraid I don’t know what you mean.”

“Don’t lie to me, Miss Hooper. You quake with an anger whose root I can’t quite determine. But I could take a guess. Your family is dead. You are alone, and not just romantically. To while away your lonely existence, you fill nearly all of your hours with birth and death.”

She stayed silent.

“Ah.” He grinned broadly, though it still didn’t reach his eyes. “And there it is. You are angry because the alternative would be to feel lonely.”

Molly snapped her eyes to his. “I’ve done fine for myself. I don’t need anyone else to be a complete person.”

“Don’t bore me. Of course it’s nothing to do with that. I speak of the thankless roles you fill in this town. People can appreciate what you do, but they don’t appreciate you. So you exist here. You return to your quiet cottage at the end of each day, only to repeat everything again the next day and the day after.”

She had never felt such rage. And it the fact that he was almost right only fueled that rage. But she managed to keep her voice mostly even. “What is the purpose of telling me all of this, Your Highness? To taunt me? To punish me?”

He looked…. disappointed. “No. Stupidity doesn’t suit you. I tell you this because I could offer you so much more. I could make you so much more.”

“What do you mean?”

Shrugging, he smirked at her. “I need a queen. It’d be less dull if she weren’t a complete moron.”

Somehow, she’d known this was his mating call. She had known it was coming in the hairsbreadth of seconds before he offered. But she’d hoped she was wrong.

“There are plenty of women just as smart as I, and smarter, who are much closer to your home.” Molly could only hope that her face matched her reasonable tone. “ And you’re not king yet. Wouldn’t it be prudent to choose someone you know better since you have the time?”

“I think I’ve just proven I know you quite well, Miss Hooper. The fact that you can face grisly things like death—and birth—without being a wilting flower would serve you well.”

Molly tried to give a firm no, but he continued speaking.

“All I ask for in exchange is your allegiance and your expertise in certain delicate matters. I can promise you that my libraries rival any others in the country. You’d never want for material.” Languidly, he came up to her stroked a gloved hand across her cheek. “I would urge you to accept my proposal, Miss Hooper. You’ll not receive such an offer again. And so you’ll spend your days here, unappreciated, unloved, and alone.”

He thinks my ego will not allow me to turn him down, she thought. So she opened her mouth to do just that, to wipe the smirk off of his face.

“It’d be best if you said yes,” he said, the threat implicit.

She still thought about screaming at him and running, though it was becoming clearer that this was her first experience of being at his behest. She would have to go with him. She would have to see him and his insanity every day.

And then she stilled. No, she wouldn’t likely receive another offer like this again.

He waited, a triumphant gleam in his otherwise dead eyes.

Though it pained her to do it, though she felt like she was selling her soul to depravity and corruption, she heard herself say, “Yes. Alright, yes.”

* * *

She trudged back into her cottage that night and looked numbly around the space that her father and grandfather had built. Where she had grown. Where both her mother and father had taken their parting breaths with her holding their hands.

She would be leaving it behind. She wasn’t even sure what things of hers she could take with her. So far, the prince was still playing his mad rendition of the benevolent suitor; surely, he’d let her bring some of her dearer possessions with her?

Not bothering to build up the fire, though she knew she’d pay for it in the snapping cold of early morning, Molly climbed fully clothed into her bed, drawing the scratchy wool covers over her. Lying on her side, she stared at the knots in the wooden wall that her fanciful fingers had traced when she was a child, long after her parents thought her asleep. Finding shapes of animals and fairies in the dark grain, she spent hours imagining stories where those friends of hers came to life, dancing across the pine boards like they would through a winter forest.

She didn’t realize she was crying until the wet patch on her pillow grew cold in the air, but she couldn’t make herself stop. Instead, she let the stinging salt water slide over the bridge of her nose and down the top of her cheek, tangling in her hair and settling on the linen.

“Sherlock,” she whispered to the unhearing planks. “Sherlock.”

* * *

Prince James escorted her to his castle two days later. There was little fanfare in her departure from the only town she’d ever lived in. She had been unable to meet Sheriff Lestrade’s eyes as she let the prince hand her up into a carriage. There was no way to explain to him why she’d made her decision, though she saw his disappointment and confusion.

There was no way to convey that it was the only choice she could reasonably make. She suspected he knew as much. He’d warned her, after all. But she would have felt better for saying it aloud to someone.

Her new home was a cold, dank castle that felt medieval, both in its construction and in the way she had essentially become chattel for the prince. She was still unclear on why he’d set her in his sights, though she’d tried observing everything around her for a hint.

Molly quietly sat through the fetes and banquets organized in her honor. She offered stiff smiles to well-wishers and quickly gained the reputation of being cold and aloof. To the people living right under the prince’s nose, he could do no wrong, and Molly’s failure to play the role of blushing, ecstatic bride was a slight on them all.

The king, a man nearing the end of his life, his mind given to senility, could not even acknowledge her when the prince presented her to him. His rheumy eyes stared, unseeing, out of a window onto the gardens below as his son explained his plans to marry within the month. And all the while, Prince James’ lip curled derisively, though Molly was unsure whether it was in disgust at the shell his father had become or at the thought of marrying the woman by this side.

The only places Molly felt any solace in were the castle’s vast library and outside, along the briny beach that the castle overlooked. She began taking daily walks along the shore, feeling the cool spray of water on her cheeks and hearing the rush and ebb of waves. Though the sun never came out, the grey water and sky matched her mood and steadied her somehow.

One day, as Molly made her way to the castle’s entry, Moran’s voice calling her name stopped her in her progress.

“The prince would like to see you, Miss Hooper, immediately.”

Resigning herself to the disruption of her morning routine, Molly nodded and followed him back into the castle, through its dining hall, and into one of the family’s many lounges.

James sat behind a large table, tapping a quill to his lips. He looked up when Molly and Moran entered, and allowed a jovial smile to take shape on his lips.

“Molly! Perfect timing. Please, have a seat.” He stood, bowing to a chair across from him. “Shall I send for tea?”

She shook her head as she lowered herself into the chair, hoping that by leaving her cloak on, he wouldn’t keep her long. “Thank you, Your Highness, but I only just finished my breakfast.”

Nodding, the prince seated himself again, crossing his legs and curling his fingers over the rounded ends of his chair’s armrests. “Have you ever seen a man who’s met his end by some sort of explosion?”

Molly blinked. “No, Sir. I haven’t.”

“But you understand the trauma that might be involved?” he pressed.

Nervously, she licked her lips. “I believe so, yes.”

Prince James waved his hand in a circle, impatient for her to continue.

“I—it depends on the type of explosion, your highness, and I’ve only read a few pieces of material on the matter. But what I understand of it and physics, trauma is typically worse in enclosed spaces.” As the words left her mouth, she admonished herself for not pleading ignorance.

The prince’s hungry gaze only made it worse.

“The most common injury from an explosion is the inner ear bursting,” she continued, stiltedly. “The entrails and other hollow organs also can rupture. There are usually few external, primary injuries because the force pushes the victim away. Secondary injuries occur when he lands or collides with something or from fragments in the explosion.”

James smiled at her, his eyes as soulless as ever. “Interesting.” He looked over her should to the man standing behind her. “Sebastian?”

Moran nodded once and left the room.

Molly could only sit with dread as her companion as she waited for the prince to return his attention to her.

“I’m afraid one of my servants might have suffered such injuries,” he explained conversationally.

Clearing her throat, which had suddenly gone dry, she said, “I hadn’t heard of explosion nearby, Your Highness.”

His smirk remained in place. “You will.”

She couldn’t help the gasp that escaped, and she shot up from her chair, hearing it scrape across the stone floor.

“That’ll be all, Molly,” James dismissed her.

“No,” she whispered.

“That will be all.”

She stumbled away; horrified by the prince and his monstrous insanity. Horrified by her own stupidity and with guilt. She may not have killed the man, but surely she’d signed his death sentence.

Molly raced out of the castle, trying to spot Moran and follow, hoping she could somehow warn the man whose life she’d just forfeited. But though she raced around the castle’s perimeter, she could not see the dust kicked up by Moran’s horse on any of the surrounding roads.

Tears pooled, burning her eyes. She would leave. She would escape this hell and she would think of some other way. Whatever she did, Molly knew she could not stay here a moment longer, not now that she knew the cost.

Racing back into the castle, she hurried back to her rooms. After securing the door behind her, she began stuffing her books and a few other items into a satchel. When it was a full as she dared make it, Molly once again opened the door, peering both ways down the hall before heading to the servants’ staircase. She clutched her cloak around her, hoping it adequately disguised her smuggled items.

Once she was clear of the kitchens, Molly stared at the stables, tempted to take a horse. But they were all branded with the mark of the king, and she knew that the prince would likely find her if she dared steal one. So she set off on foot, heading back toward the sea. She could only hope that those who saw her departing would assume she was going for a morning constitutional and nothing more.

As usual, the sandy shore was empty save for her. She assumed that patrols kept commoners from the stretch of beach that ran the length of the castle grounds. It wouldn’t do for James to have to see any of his subjects, even from the comfort of his keep.

A drizzle started as she slogged along the loose sand, gritting her teeth in determination to get far away. Pulling the hood up over her head, Molly was momentarily distracted as she fought to do so without dropping her bag. After she finally succeeded, she looked ahead again.

The beach played host to large pieces of driftwood and had a copse of trees growing a bit further ashore. Other than that, it was a rather barren area. Its scenic areas were further back, but the terrain was now quite familiar to Molly.

The two men standing up ahead of her were not.

Ducking her head, she kept going, not wanting to arouse any suspicion if they were members of James’ guard.

But as she drew nearer to them, one of them hailed her.

“Excuse me, miss,” the man with gray hair smiled, showing crooked teeth. His squint indicated poor eyesight, but he met her eyes well enough. “We are looking for the village of Babcock. Are we near it?”

Molly had to shake herself out of her shock. She was not familiar with the surrounding area, but she did remember overhearing one of the king’s carers lamentthe length of the ride to the next village.

“I’m afraid not. There is nothing around the castle for miles. The grounds are quite extensive.”

The second man shifted, puffing out a gust of air and looking altogether unhappy. “Then we’d best be on our way, wouldn’t you say?” he asked his companion.

The first man turned to his sandy-haired friend. “John,” was all he said, his tone admonishing, before he turned back to Molly. “That is fortunate, then.” He smiled.

“Excuse me?” she asked, but something had her backing away from the two men, no matter how inoffensive they seemed.

“It’s fortunate because it means no one will hear you scream.”

Molly turned, trying to push off on the sand and run away. But there in her way stood a giant, skeletal man. He hardly even had to extend his arm to reach her. Though she tried to dodge his grip, his hand closed around her arm, and he pulled her to him.

His hand closed over her mouth and nose, and Molly could only struggle for mere seconds before everything went black.

* * *

  **...**  


* * *

 

I commissioned the fantastic **Sempaiko** ([Tumblr](sempaiko.tumblr.com), [DeviantArt](sempaiko.deviantart.com/)) to draw a scene inspired by this fic. The result made me so happy:

 


	3. Ghost on the Horizon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's title is from Antony and the Johnson’s “Hope There’s Someone”.
> 
> Thank you so much too everyone who followed, favorited, kudos’d and reviewed after the last update. I truly appreciate everyone’s interest and the feedback and encouragement!
> 
> So many thanks to broomclosetkink for her help and support and beta reading while I wrote this. She's well used to my neuroses by now, but this chapter featured particularly vocal whining on my part. John's backstory is entirely her idea and I’m just so grateful she shared it with me, because if she hadn't, John would probably just be seeking revenge against a man who once stole an apple fritter from him.  
> Just kidding. Sort of.

 

* * *

Rocking, creaking, and a salt spray woke her. Molly lay there unmoving for several moments, staring at the billowing canvas above her head.

Somehow, though she couldn’t quite place the _why_ and _how_ of it, she was on a boat. Judging by the fully unfurled sails and moving blanket of clouds above her, this particular craft was well underway at sea.

She wasn’t soothed by the lull of the waves. To the contrary, she jolted upright, looking desperately around her as the implications of her dire straights set in. It was only when she found three pairs of eyes watching her that she remembered:  Her flight from the castle down to the shoreline. The lost men asking for directions.  A giant hand clasping her face and suffocating her. Darkness.

Now, those same men sat at the bow of the boat and looked unmoved by her distress. They watched as she scuttled back from where they’d discarded her on the deck, unimpressed by such a futile attempt to put some distance between her and them.

“Who are you?” she demanded, ~~her~~ voice raspy. She had to try to raise it to be heard over the lap of water against the boat’s hull. “What do you want with me?”

The first of the two smaller men, the one who’d first spoken to Molly on the beach, smirked. “Miss Hooper, welcome aboard. Glad your ship came in.”

Shaking her head, she replied, “I wasn’t waiting for a ship.”

“Doesn’t mean you don’t need one.” His voice met with the caw of a circling gull overhead, lending a strange opposition of innocence to his ominous words.

“Let me go,” Molly pleaded. “Let me go before this goes horribly wrong for you.”

The blond man—Ron? Don? Ian? Molly couldn’t remember though she’d heard him addressed by name—turned to his older companion. “Jeffrey, let’s turn around and do as the lady asks.”

The first man, Jeffery, turned slowly, his eyebrows arched. “Don’t worry, John.”

John scoffed. “Why shouldn’t I worry?”

“After we kill the colorful Miss Hooper, you can continue on with your little revenge scheme. You’ll be flush in the pockets as you get yourself run through with a sword.”

Molly did not want to humanize a man who had willingly taken her captive, but she could have sworn that John stiffened. “You never said anything about killing her,” he said lowly. “This was supposed to be a simple kidnapping for ransom.”

“My sponsor’s instructions changed,” Jeffrey explained with a bored shrug.

“Who exactly _is_ your sponsor?” John asked.

“Someone whose identity you should have investigated before you agreed to take the job, Watson. Now, help Dzundza trim the sails.”

With that, Jeffrey unfolded a map and turned his back on his three shipmates. He stood unmoving on the port side of the boat with his head bent over the parchment, and paid no mind to the two men fighting the wind’s pull behind him.

Dzundza, the impossibly tall and heretofore silent strangler, seemed not to find much help in the much shorter John, but the two of them worked against a hard gale. They were all absorbed enough in their tasks that none of the men noticed Molly carefully pushing up onto her knees. It wasn’t a large boat and she was able to peer over the deck rail with little strain. 

At first, all she could see was water, mist, and clouds around her. She fought down oily panic as she squinted over the brackish surface in the direction of the boat’s bow.  She had to keep on thinking, she scolded herself. It wouldn’t do to panic and simply await her death. Her captors had not even bound her hands.

Almost as if they invited an attempt to flee.

Just as Molly was starting to think that she would have to bide her time, the mist swirled, revealing the obsidian-black of landfall ahead of them. Squinting, she tried to estimate its distance but only came up with one answer: still quite far.  But was it too far to swim? She bit her lip. It was going to be a futile attempt anyway, but she had to try. She was not sure another opportunity would present itself. 

As carefully and slowly as she could manage, she pulled herself to her feet, trying to keep low enough that she didn’t move into the men’s line of sight. She looked down to the churning water and prodded herself silently. Before she could rethink it, she rolled over the deck rail and into the water. The drop was only a few feet, but she felt her stomach leap in that strangely protracted moment where she was suspended between starboard and sea.

The water closed over her, its icy cold robbing the breath that she’d so carefully drawn in before leaving the safety of the boat deck. The swamping wet pulled and dragged at her skirts, but she kicked furiously, desperate not only to reach surface but move away from the hull.  She opened her eyes despite the stinging of the salt and could see the rippling daylight above her head.  With a push of her arms against the weight of her dress, she finally broke the surface, gasping for air.

At first, she was too dazed by the cold to notice much of anything, but slowly, the sounds of shouting drew Molly’s attention back in the direction of the boat.

Jeffrey, John, and Dzundza all stood at the rail, the former two men calling to her.

“Miss Hooper,” John cried, “It’s not safe!”

Jeffrey, meanwhile, looked unconcerned. He shushed John before grinning at Molly, revealing his crooked teeth. “Stay in there if you like.  If the cold doesn’t freeze your blood in a matter of minutes, the sharks will take care of you.”

“This sea is t-too cold for sharks this far north.” Molly’s teeth chattered and she felt her energy start to drain with the effort of treading the water.

“I would tell that to the one coming at you now,” Jeffrey leered.

Dread thumped in Molly’s chest as she caught movement out of the corner of her eye. She whirled (or tried to) and saw that Jeffrey was not lying. Something was slicing through the water towards her from fifty meters off, and quickly.

“It looks hungry,” he called to her, his words almost sing-song. “But we could pull you back aboard. Give you another chance to try—and fail—to save your own life once we’re on shore.”

Molly could now make out the distinct shape and color of a cloud-grey fin. She shut her eyes in momentary defeat even as she nodded. “Yes, please. Pull me back.”

She looked up to the three faces above her. John was trying to lean over the rail, extending a hand to her, but try as she might, she couldn’t reach it.

“Dzundza?” Jeffrey sighed.

With a grunt, the tall man leaned down and grabbed a fistful of the back of Molly’s dress, plucking her from the sea with little strain. Just as the chill of wind bit her ankles, the water frothed and spewed as something large broke the surface. The shark’s enormous jaw chomped at the air where Molly had been a mere hairsbreadth before. She felt the rush of air and gave a preemptive gasp, but Dzundza dropped her back onto the wooden planks of the deck before she could suffer any injury.

Molly sat there, dazed as Jeffrey smirked down at her and John studied her with a furrowed brow. Defiantly tamping down a shiver, she glared back at the ringleader of her hostage-taking and refused to show just how shaken she was by her encounter with a large predator.

Deep down, though, she wondered if it wouldn’t have been better to get eaten by the shark. She had no idea what Jeffrey had in store for her, or why, but it couldn’t be pleasant.

Finally, the men scattered again and Molly collapsed back against the rail. She couldn’t fight the shudders arcing through her body anymore. She’d once read that shivering was important in warding off death from the cold, so she allowed herself to give in to the shaking.

The sound of footsteps coming toward her roused Molly, and she looked up in surprise to see John leaning down to cover her with a scratchy, tattered blanket.

“Thank you,” she said, uncertainly.

He sat down onto a nearby crate, carefully moving the sabre strapped to his side out of the way. “It’s nothing. Are you alright?” His voice was quiet, as if he was afraid the others might hear him.

She almost answered honestly, but then remembered that this was a man who had aided in her capture and was doing little to defend her from oncoming death.  Instead, she muttered, “What do you care?”

He sighed. “I _do_ care. I never intended…. I didn’t want this.”

“Then _why_ are you still here? What could possibly be worth my death?”

He looked at her beseechingly. “I promise you, I had no idea that was the plan.”

Molly scoffed. “And yet here we are. What are you going to do to stop it?”

She never found out if she could count on John to be her one, misguided advocate. Just as he started to to reply, something caught his eye off of the stern of the boat. He stood quickly, sending the crate skidding along the deck behind him.

Molly followed his gaze, but could only see the specks of gulls out on the horizon. She watched as he hurried aft, still trying to spot what had caught his attention so abruptly.

She didn’t have to wait long in suspense.

“Gentlemen,” he called to Jeffrey and Dzundza with feigned casualness. The two men looked up with mild interest. “I don’t want to be an alarmist, but I do believe we’re being followed.”

Jeffrey squinted in myopic study. “Doubtful. It’s probably a merchant vessel heading to the port town.”

But what if he was wrong? A stab of hope pierced Molly’s stomach before she remembered that the only person who might try to save her was quite possibly the greater of two evils. She looked to shore again and started mapping out possible hiding places for after she miraculously incapacitated all three of her captors.

“We’re about to make landfall,” John interrupted her thoughts. “I’ll drop anchor. Dzundza, let’s get the rowboat ready.”

The two men hurried across the deck and began making preparations; however, Molly couldn’t help but notice that John kept flicking his glance back behind them.

After they hoisted her into a rickety rowboat, the three men piled in behind her and lowered it down to the water. The wood groaned as John and Dzundza began pulling at the oars, and Molly had a distressing vision of the shark breeching and biting the tiny boat in half.  She’d escaped going down its gullet once and wasn’t optimistic that she’d evade death-by-shark a second time around.

“The ship is getting closer,” John murmured, interrupting Molly’s fatalistic thoughts.

Indeed, she could now see distinct sails stretched against the skyline. She looked over to Jeffrey, pettily hoping to see signs of alarm. She didn’t want to see Prince James ever again, but she also quite hated Jeffrey.

She was disappointed to see that he still looked unimpressed.

“It’s highly doubtful that it’s coming for us,” he said again, his voice calm.

John stared at him a moment before shaking his head and continuing to pull at the choppy water.

After several, silent minutes, the boat skidded into the shallows. John and Dzundza clambered into the knee-deep water and tugged it further onto the sand, until the waves hardly reached it.  Dzundza reached down and dragged Molly out. On solid ground, her waterlogged skirts felt even heavier and she swayed on her feet, trying to get her bearings. She scanned the area again for means of escape.  Perhaps she could get her hands on an oar and hit them upside of their heads?

It was almost as if Jeffrey had read her thoughts, for her staggered to her over the loose stand, grinning maliciously as he pulled a length of rope from the satchel hanging off of his shoulder. He chuckled when her eyes widened. “Oh, don’t worry. I’m not going to kill you here. We’ll move further inland. There can’t be any mistaking what or who killed you. Boss’ orders.” He stepped up to Molly.  “Turn around, arms behind you.”

If she entertained any ideas of elbowing Jeffrey in the midriff and fleeing, Dzundza quashed them by stepping forward. He glared down at her as he pushed her wrists together for Jeffrey, who bound them efficiently.

“Prince James will see you all hanged.” She hated even mentioning her fiancé’s name, but desperation was starting to eek in.  She grimaced when she felt Jeffrey pat the knot of her binding as he laughed greasily.

“He will, eh? I’ll look forward to meeting him, then. Let’s move.”

Molly shot a beseeching look at John, but he was distracted, looking back out to the pursuing ship. It was definitely closer, but John appeared to have given up on warning his party. When he did finally meet her eyes, she arched her brows at him, as if to say, _Well?_

He lifted his hands minutely, a helpless gesture.

The shoreline sloped up into a rather steep climb below what appeared to be a plateau, and Molly had to fight not to tip over without movement in her arms for balance. They’d made it about halfway up the side of the hill before Jeffrey bothered look back out to the sea. His lips curled into an unhappy sneer.

The pursuing ship was pulling up abreast with the sailboat that her captors had piloted. She could make out the shadowy form of someone singlehandedly working the pulley ropes that secured a rowboat similar to theirs.

“Not following us, eh?” John asked calmly.

Jeffrey regained his composure. “It’s doubtful he’ll catch up to us.”

John gave a bitter laugh. “The things you’ve found _doubtful_ up to now have all come to fruition. I’m beginning to suspect you don’t actually know the meaning of the word.”

“Fine,” Jeffrey snapped. “If you’re so sure I’m wrong, return to the beach. Your one advantage is your sword. Find us after you’ve dispatched him. Dzundza, it’s your turn to steer Miss Hooper.”

Molly wilted as she realized the one person who might have helped her was being separated from her. She tried to comfort herself with the thought that he had never actually promised to protect her, but her gut told her that John would not have allowed Jeffrey and Dzundza to kill her.

She squared her shoulders and fought her panic with a new resolve. She would just have to save herself.

And this time, there wouldn’t be any bloody sharks to stop her.

* * *

John Watson spent fifteen years of his life in the service of the king in a Dragoon battalion. He had seen more than his share of combat in that time, and had quickly earned a reputation for his efficient skill with a sabre.  Even now, as he flirted with middle age, he didn’t think it boastful to admit that he would prove a worthy adversary to anyone who cared to challenge him.

After he was invalided, he hadn’t set out to turn mercenary. In fact, some might have argued that it was the furthest thing from a fitting career for a man of his temperament. By all rights, he should now be relishing his hard-won quiet. But necessity was not just the mother of invention, but also the mother of bold acts from otherwise peaceful men. 

So here he was, now made a kidnapper and accessory apparent to the murder of an innocent woman.

The regret plagued him after Jeffrey, Dzundza, and Molly Hooper disappeared from sight. Miss Hooper was well and truly on her own now. He could only hope that she found a way out of her circumstances.  If not, the only way he could right this wrong was to incapacitate or kill the group’s pursuer and make it back to her in time.

A glance down the hill confirmed that the mystery man giving chase was rapidly approaching, pulling hard at his oars, approaching the beach at a punishing pace. John frowned at the desperation in the stranger’s speed. He’d be exhausted before he reached his goal. This would be a quick fight, indeed.

John didn’t bother to hide; there’d be no point in that. The other man must know he was there. Instead, he checked his boot lacings and sword blade, calming the nerves that always danced through him before the singing clash of steel.

His shoulder twinged, a needless reminder, and he rubbed at it absently.

Only a few, short minutes later, the stranger leapt from his boat, not bothering to pull it further on land. He stalked across the sand, breathing heavily and looking right at John.  He wore all black, from his hair, his long, swirling coat, and down to the leather of his boots. Though the man was rather thin, he had several inches on John, and that was something to take into account.

“Where is she?” the man asked. His voice was pitched low, and was all the more threatening for it.

If John had wanted to reply, he wouldn’t have had the chance. The stranger yanked a sword from a sheath at his hip and lunged.

Later, John would have a hard time explaining what happened. All he knew was that this man was likely one of the best swordsmen he’d ever fought, in spite of his breathless approach.

They skirted the tiny beach again and again, thrusting and parrying, their blades never making contact with anything but each other.

“You’re fantastic,” John said conversationally as they circled each other. Perhaps talking would distract his foe.

“Thank you,” the man replied primly, skirting a swipe from John’s blade. “Likewise. You’re a Dragoon, I see.”

John spared a thought to wonder how he knew, stepping lightly back from another lunge. “Former.” He parried and their swords clanged loudly. “It’ll be a shame for Prince James to lose you as a champion,” he grunted.

The man in black laughed dryly. “I’m many things, but I’m not one of James’ champions.”

This gave John pause. He lowered his sabre slightly. “You’re not trying to save the prince’s fiancée?”

“Oh, I’m not trying. I _will_ save her,” the man replied, rolling his eyes at John’s stupidity. He danced forward again but didn’t do much more than hold his sword hand aloft.

“To return her to the prince, then?” John clarified.

“Over my dead body,” the stranger said. “And please, for the sake of your dignity, don’t say, ‘That can be arranged.’”

Blocking a half-hearted advance, John shook his head. “Wouldn’t dream of it. Who are you?” 

“No one to be trifled with.”

John couldn’t help it. He laughed. When the man’s eyes narrowed, John waved at him and lowered his sword the rest of the way. “Sorry, it’s just…I’ve only ever read that line in storybooks. So you’re going to kidnap Molly Hooper not only from the men who have her, but also the crown prince? Why?”

“I fail to see how that’s any of your concern,” the man said, peering at John suspiciously. He had yet to lower his blade, but at least he was no longer trying to impale his opponent.

“Because,” John said, trying to appear as unthreatening as possible. “I’d be willing to help you if I can be sure that you don’t mean to harm Miss Hooper.”

“And I’m to trust that you’re not going to harm her yourself? You did help kidnap her.” The man’s lip curled derisively.

“Something I regret very much. Why do you want to save Molly Hooper from the prince?” John repeated.

The mysterious man’s cool eyes scanned John, assessing before he finally lowered his sabre. “Prince James will harm her more than your merry men ever could.”

“Those ‘merry men’ mean to kill her,” John reminded him.

“He’ll harm her more than they _ever_ could,” the man repeated.

John looked at him quietly for a moment before straightening with a single nod and sheathing his sword. “The name’s John Watson, by the way.”

The stranger still looked suspicious and did not reciprocate his introduction. “Why do you want to help me?”

“Because I don’t want any more harm to come to Miss Hooper. And because I have business with the prince’s adviser.”

“Business?”

Nodding, John took the chance to turn his back on his opponent, trusting that the stranger’s interest was piqued enough not to run him through with his sword. He set off up the hill and heard the crunch of shifting sand under footfalls behind him.

“Sebastian Moran. He was in the Light Cavalry with me,” he explained, picking up where he’d left off.

“He betrayed you.”

John shook his head, “Not just me. Our entire regiment, in fact. He killed seventeen Dragoons in one night.”

“Impressive,” the man said.

John whirled around, gaping. “Impressive that he killed several, good people, including my—are you really so heartless?”

“Oh, I’m sure they were _great_ ,”—John wasn’t convinced the man was being particularly sincere—“but it takes a skilled fighter to single-handedly take that many people.”

“He had help. Three other men, lackeys of his.”

“No wonder the sniveling coward of a prince employed him. James does so hate to get his hands dirty; he’d appreciate some good delegation. But that’s not why you’re seeking revenge.”

“No?” John’s brow winged up.

“No,” the man said decidedly. “You’ve medical training. Those aren’t sword nicks on your hands. Your skill with a sabre is incidental. You were with the Dragoons as a sawbones. Followed your brother into the service. He was one of those killed by Sebastian Moran. This quest of yours is far too personal and devout to be anything but vengeance for him.”

“How do you know any of this?”

“The engraving on the fuller of your blade. _H.W._ You just told me your name is John Watson. That’s a right-handed sabre while you are decidedly left-handed. A cavalryman’s sword, nice workmanship, but nothing remarkable.” The stranger indicated along the length of the blade. “It shows some wear, but not much on the blade, and certainly not enough to have seen much battle, yet the style is more than six years out of fashion. It belongs to a person who died before he could get much use in. It’s not your sword, but you carry it to honor your brother, who was cut down before his time.”

They walked up the sharp climb in silence for several moments.

“I bought it and had it engraved as a gift,” John explained, feeling a fresh stab of grief for a loss that shouldn’t feel new after so many years. “She was ecstatic.”

The man came to an abrupt halt and his face actually showed genuine surprise. “ _She_?”

John nodded absently, examining the sword hanging from his hip. “Harriet Watson. My sister.”

“A woman Dragoon.”

“Growing up, Harry never had much interest in the fripperies that little girls are told they should like. She realized very early on that her nature would very likely get her executed as a heretic, but she couldn’t abide a stifling life as the bride of some merchant. When we were twenty-two, she ran away from home. I found her only by a small miracle the day she enlisted with the Dragoons, disguised as boy.”

“And she managed to conceal herself for more than ten years?” the stranger very nearly marveled.

John _hmm_ ed in the affirmative. “I was an apprentice to the town doctor, content in my quiet, dull future. But the moment I discovered what Harry had done and realized that I would not be able to change her mind, I enlisted, too.  I did my best to help hide her true identity. She didn’t need my protection, but we _were_ twins and it was a potentially permanent separation. She was always far more adventurous than I, and this was no exception. She left because she wanted freedom. I left because I knew nothing other than how to worry.”

“She died, so it sounds as if you were right to worry,” the man suggested.

“Not until the end. She fought fiercely and precisely. If you think I am skilled with a blade, you should have seen her. You wouldn’t have fared nearly so well if had been she you fought.” John smiled with a ghost of pride aching in his heart before it dropped away as he remembered. “One night, a little over five years ago, our fellow Dragoon, Sebastian Moran spotted Harry without her bindings on, though he didn’t get a close enough look to have it confirmed. But he made it his mission to find her out. And when he did…. Killing her flat-out would have been a mercy. Instead, he brutalized her.”

For once the man in black had no rejoinder. He stood there, watching John with faint sorrow.

Needing the distraction of walking, John indicated that they should start moving again. “Harry, though she was injured an traumatized, went after Moran.  She decided to kill him. And she would have, if Moran’s lackeys hadn’t intervened.  And so Moran got the upper hand with a little help from his friends. He killed her. He took the time to put her back in our tent, lewdly placed to shame her even in death. When I found her body,” he continued, “I knew immediately who had defiled and murdered her. I plead my case to my regiment’s colonel and he agreed to arrest Moran for a tribunal, though he threatened to do the same to me for aiding the concealment of a woman in our camp. But he and I, along with three other men, went to take Moran into custody.”

“And Moran and his men fought back,” the man supplied.

“Yes. They killed my colonel and the others and left me for dead, and then managed to kill seven more men that night before finally escaping. Moran picked off his own men as he scurried into the shadow of the prince and there he stays, well protected from reprisal.” John’s hand returned to the grip of his sabre. “But I will get to him, and when I do, I will calmly reintroduce myself and then stab his black heart with Harry’s blade before he can reply.”

 “Well,” the strange man said after several more moments of silence as they finally reached level ground once more. “Perhaps we can help each other, for I have business with the prince. But first we must save Molly.”

 “Why are you so interested in her?” John called behind him. The dense trees made it hard for them to walk abreast. “Has she been cuckolding her fiancé with you?”

The man scoffed. “Hardly. I have my reasons to save her. Again, they’re none of your concern. But I assure you that I only want her to be safe.”

“That’s a lot of effort from a person she seemed not to recognize.”

“She would have no reason to expect me. But there’s a town up north that’s missing its Master in the Art of Death and a talented midwife. She filled both roles and it’s time she was restored to her home there.”

“What do you care?” John asked, confused.

The man didn’t reply. John turned to repeat his question, but the man in black brought a finger up to his lips.

They listened for several, pregnant moments before the man nodded at John and started walking once more.  “Up ahead,” he explained.

John squinted, and made out a tall figure ducking into a copse of trees, still far out of earshot and walking away from them. “That will be Oscar Dzundza. He’s the… large fellow.”

“Dzundza. I know that name.”

Nodding, John watched as the giant man disappeared from sight. “Yes, he’s gained a reputation as a hired assassin. He only takes on minor cases of kidnapping when the death work is slow.”

“Ah, yes,” the man nodded. “He certainly gets around.”

“Apparently, my mysterious employer only likes the best.”

 The stranger glanced sharply at John. “You mean you don’t know who your employer is?”

“No. Jeffrey, the one who organized this whole thing, hired me.”

“And you blindly accepted?”

John bristled. “I was assured that it was the quickest way to Moran. Jeffrey told me Miss Hooper would be expecting us and was in on it. I only found out that was not the case when we took her. And I admit that I was mostly focused on what I would get from the deal.”

The man in black looked unimpressed. “So you’re an idiot, then.” And then he waved off John’s look of annoyance. “Don’t worry, nearly everyone is. Your employer is obviously Prince James.”

Sputtering, John shook his head. “No! That doesn’t make any—what reason would he have to kidnap his own fiancée?”

“It’ amazing, the things war can get you.”

“You’re telling me Prince James is trying a start a war by framing whole country for the death of his betrothed?”

The man in black shrugged. “The prince is like a spider. His power only goes so far as the span of his web. Conquer the neighboring country because you want to? It’s hard to rally willing troops. But respond to an act of war with the country that killed prince’s ‘beloved’? Oh, now, _that_ will sound the battle cry.”

John nearly tripped over a log as he considered the man’s words. He barely managed to keep an eye open for Dzundza, Jeffrey, and Miss Hooper while he worried his bottom lip in thought. He’d heard stories about Prince James, of course, and knew him to be the worst sort, if his willingness to keep Sebastian Moran was any indication. Still, how could he, John, not realize just who was pulling the strings?

His thoughts were interrupted when the branches ahead of them snapped and Oscar Dzundza burst forward, barreling right for them.

Without discussing it, the stranger and John moved away from each other, letting the giant stumble right between them. Dzundza stretched an impossibly long arm out and his large hand connected with the side of the man in black’s head. It was a hard enough strike to momentarily daze the man, and Dzundza took advantage of his distraction to lunge at him. His large hand closed over the man’s face, and there it stayed despite the man’s struggles.

Without pausing to think about whether it was wise or not, John charged at Dzundza, catching him in his midriff with his shoulder. Dzundza grunted, hardly moving, but it was enough to force him to release his suffocating hold on the man in black’s face.

John only had a moment to regret his oversight in not dancing away after connecting with Dzundza. The giant turned to him, his nostrils flaring as he swung out at John. With a smack that he would later swear echoed several times, John saw himself careening toward a large boulder. His temple connected with the stone and he reeled around, falling slowly to the dirt and nettles beneath him.

The last thing he saw before blackness overtook him was the sight of the man in black leaping onto Dzundza’s back and bringing a large rock down on the giant’s head.

* * *

Though he was confident that Watson or Dzundza would be able to kill their mysterious pursuer, Jeffrey prepared his own line of defense with satisfaction. He relished the opportunity, in fact. Knowing that his superior intellect and cunning made up for his lack of sword fighting skills and physical powers was titillating for a man like Jeffery.

He only felt a smattering of surprise as he watched as a lone man--one whom he did not recognize--emerge into the clearing. So, he’d managed to kill Watson and Dzundza, then. That was a shame. Good fighters were hard to come by. But it really made no matter, in the long run. Jeffrey was about to have his fun, and that was all he’d ever wanted when he entered Prince James’ employ.

He crouched down in front of a flat rock, setting two phials in the middle of the rock before resting his hands non-threateningly on the surface.  He watched as the stranger raced up to him, unsheathing his sword with a look of cold fury.

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that,” Jeffrey drawled before the man could get too close.

The stranger ignored the suggestion, but did take time to respond. “And why not?”

“I’m unarmed, for one thing. And besides, if you kill me, you’ll not find Miss Hooper.”

Though he didn’t drop his sword arm, the man frowned at Jeffrey. “I see she managed to break your nose, so it looks like she’s alive and well. But what if I don’t care to find Miss Hooper? Perhaps I’m only here to kill you.”

Jeffrey laughed quietly. “Oh, you’re a terrible bluffer. I’m a businessman. You have no reason to kill me.”

“No one else would die because of you. I’d call that a result.”

“I recognize you,” Jeffrey said, instead of reacting to his words.

The man arched an eyebrow. “So?”

“So I know exactly why you’re here, and if you kill me, you’ll never get what you want.”

“How do you propose we negate this impasse, then?” the man asked.

“Oh, you’re going to love this. You’re a proper genius, so this should be fun.”

The man studied him with a sneer. “I see. So you’re a _proper genius_ , too.”

Jeffrey shrugged modestly. “I don’t look it, I know. But I promise you this: you will learn. It’s probably the last thing you’ll ever learn.”

“Before I get bored and just stab you, explain to me what you want.”

“I just want to have a chat. You listen to me talk. If you don’t kill yourself, she’s all yours.”

“What makes you think I won’t find her even if I just kill you?”

Nodding vaguely toward the woods, Jeffrey explained, “She’s concealed well. She’ll just wither away. Starvation and exposure… not fun ways to go, but that’s what she’s in for if you don’t play this game with me.”

The man stared him down, not moving for several moments before he stepped up to the opposite side of the rock, lowering down onto his knees. His gaze flicked over the phials.

“Two bottles. Explain.”

Jeffrey grinned. “There’s a good bottle and a bad bottle. One bottle contains a little something I made up, derived from a highly toxic Australian plant.”

“And the other is harmless,” the stranger finished.

“See, I knew you were a bright one. And I’ll make you deal. You choose one, and I’ll take the other.”

“But you know which one is which.”

Oh, this was fun. “Of course I know. That’s the game. You choose.”

“And how do I know you won’t cheat?”

“Easy,” Jeffrey said. “I don’t care to die.”

The man studied him. “And yet you’re willing to play a game of chance.”

“Chess, not chance. A game with the highest stakes, which I’ve won every time I’ve played so far. And now it’s your move.” He slid a phial across the smooth rock, stopping when it was right in front of the other man.

“There’re even odds that I’ll pick either one. You have no way of knowing,” the man argued.

“I know how people think. I know how _you_ think. It’s strategy that has kept me alive this long. So how’s your strategy? Am I bluffing? Or double bluffing? Or maybe even _triple_ bluffing?”

The stranger’s eyes swept over his opponent and the bottles.

“Think you’ve got the answer?” Jeffrey asked.

“Of course. Child’s play.” The man reached forward, grasping the nearest bottle. He held it up to the light, studying its contents.

His gaze flickered up to Jeffrey as he slowly uncorked it and brought it up to his lips.

Jeffrey felt his lips curl in a smirk as he, too, opened a bottle and made to swallow the pills inside.

But just as the glass touched their lips, Jeffrey felt a sharp, sudden sting in his back. He nearly buckled at the pain, but managed to turn.

John Watson stood there, breathing heavily and resheathing his sword. “I’d say building up an immunity to the poison _is_ cheating, wouldn’t you, Jeffrey?” he panted.

Jeffrey slumped to the ground, his hearing tunneling. He felt his heart protest as blood seeped from it, but he refused to accept his death. He lay there, listening to the muffled words of the two men before him.

“Dzundza woke up and ran. I’ll go after him. Go find Molly Hooper,” John said to the stranger before he turned and raced off, back toward the beach.

The man nodded, but only skirted the rock, walking up to Jeffrey’s prone form.

“Where is she?” he demanded.

Jeffrey coughed weakly, a small laugh, and he refused to answer.

This didn’t move the man in black. He merely lifted a booted foot, kicking lightly at Jeffrey’s shoulder until he was flat out on the ground. He set his foot lightly on the stab wound.  “Where is she?” he repeated.

When Jeffrey again didn’t respond, the man sighed. “You are dying, but it will be relatively painless from here on out if you just answer me.”

No reply.

The man steadily applied pressure until Jeffrey bellowed at the agony. The stranger only let up enough pressure to allow Jeffrey the faculties to flail his arm toward a dark gathering of trees. “She’s there. Eighth tree in, covered by a dun blanket,” he sobbed.

The stranger’s foot returned to the ground. As he made to run, he took time to casually toss over his shoulder,  “It was a pleasure doing business with you.”

* * *

Her body ached. The tree was enormous, and the span of her arms didn’t even reach the radius in her horrible, pseudo hug of the trunk.  Jeffrey may have depended on John Watson and Oscar Dzundza to steer the boat, but he certainly knew how to tie a strong sailor’s knot. Her pain only felt exacerbated as she stared dully at the speckles of light that seeped through the wool blanket he’d draped over her.

Molly pressed her cheek to the scratchy bark, too tired and her wrists too raw to keep struggling against the thick rope that bound her.  Her jaw hurt from the gag stuffed in her mouth, and she knew that she’d not be able to escape this. She could only wait for her death, now. 

Her heart kicked in her chest when she heard someone running toward her. The gait was too even to be John Watson's, too light to be Dzundza’s. It must be Jeffrey, back to kill her. She wished she’d managed more than the broken nose she’d given him before he tied her to the tree. It was a petty, small triumph, but then, she was going to die, so she would take what she could get.

So the only thing Molly had left was her defiance. She refused to look around when the blanket was yanked back, though the sudden, resurgence of light had her squinting, anyway. She made no sound when hands untied her gag, though her mouth worked to relieve the horrid pain of being held open so roughly.  She stared straight ahead at the rough bark of the tree, waiting, and refusing to react. 

When calloused fingers moved to untie her wrists, Molly only allowed herself a moment of confusion. Jeffrey probably wanted to see the fear in her eyes as he killed her.

She wouldn’t give him that satisfaction.

“Go to hell,” she suggested to the figure behind her. A hand came to rest gently on her hip, and Molly froze, trying not to tremble when her killer leaned forward, his chest pressing against her back.

She had no time to react further before soft lips and warm breath brushed the shell of her ear and whispered, “If I must.”


	4. All My Heroes and All Their Demons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A reunion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, all. Thank you so much to everyone who’s followed, favorited, given kudos, and reviewed the prior chapters. I truly appreciate it and your continued enthusiasm and patience for the story. I know this was a long wait, but I hope this chapter is to your liking.
> 
> Chapter title is from Brandi Carlile's "Again Today."

* * *

**Chapter Four: All My Heroes and All Their Demons**

* * *

When Molly was sixteen years old, she fell from a horse and fully dislocated her knee, tearing several ligaments in the process. As the pain took over, she fought to stay conscious. It likely lasted only a few seconds—though each second felt like several minutes—while her hearing tunneled. Everything sounded muffled, like water that won’t shake loose from an ear, with a tintinnabulous ringing on top of it. Even the rasping breaths she carefully drew and expelled came from far off.

This moment felt entirely too similar.

The calls of birds and the rustle of tree branches dimmed. She could no longer hear the waves crashing on the nearby coast.  Her heart thudded, and she felt it pulsing in her head. Certain that anyone would hear it while she remained deaf, she could barely breathe in and out and fight a swelling panic.

Though shock made her sluggish, she knew she’d have to move soon. To say something immediately.

Calloused fingers moved over first one wrist and then the other, loosening the knots in the rough rope that had tethered her to the tree, completing what they’d started before the tempest swept in. Those same fingers tarried only long enough to trace her abraded skin. First one wrist and then the other.

The man standing behind Molly said nothing, though she doubted she’d have heard him if he’d tried. She felt a stirring of air when he took a step back after the rope fell to the ground. He waited silently.

Her arms fell heavily to her sides and she stared at the rough bark before her, willing the flaking wood to explain to her what was happening. It failed to enlighten her. 

Slowly, she made her reluctant body turn. Her limbs complained, stiff after standing so long in that forced position against the tree. They only felt stiffer with her newfound terror that none of it would be real; terror that it  _would_  be real. 

He did not move back to her as she turned. Warily, he waited for her, his eyes fathomless in the shadow of the trees.

The moment she faced him fully,  all sound returned around her and Molly could hear everything. She could hear her heart thundering in her chest and the rustle of her skirt in the breeze.

She could hear herself hoarsely whisper, “Sherlock.”

Hesitantly, he stepped closer to her once more. Was he worried that she would startle at any sudden movement from him?  That she wouldn’t want him to touch her? He had never been the sort to tiptoe before. Other than where it concerned his feelings for her, she conceded.

As he took his first, creeping step forward, it all at once seemed ridiculous, this dancing around.  She still had no idea how this was happening or how she refrained from weeping when it felt like her agony and her relief pulled her sharply in different directions. She could not be certain her throbbing blood would ever calm itself.

But Molly Hooper was nothing if not sensible. Whatever conflict she might be feeling at that moment, she still knew that it as only good sense to reach forward and grab two fistfuls of Sherlock Holmes’ tunic and pull him forward. She did so with enough force that his eyes widened in surprise.  His feet stumbled to catch up with his forward momentum, and he barely managed to stop himself before he crashed into her.

His stuttering halt made no difference to Molly. She stepped forward just a quickly, pressing into him and winding her arms tightly around his waist. Resting her face against the fine weaving of the material at his collar, she said it again: “Sherlock.”

It was all he needed. He did not hesitate again or warily demur. Instead, he bought his hands up to cup her face, the pads of his fingers smoothing gently across her flushed cheeks before settling in her hair, tilting her head back. Leaning down, Sherlock brushed his nose against hers, his eyes still dark pools as they flitted over her face.

His lips grazed hers as he whispered, “Molly. Molly.”

Moving up onto her toes, she brought her mouth to his, kissing him with a joy that she’d scarcely known. He deepened it, coaxing her lips with his while his arms moved around her, crushing her to him in a grip that might have robbed her of breath had she any to take.

They’d only shared a few, stolen kisses prior to this moment, all in the span of minutes. Those kisses were precious to her, but this was the greeting of lovers who’d never had a chance to love.   _No_ , Molly corrected herself. Lovers who’d  _not yet_  had a chance to love. They’d found one another far too slowly, but this embrace absolved them for that oversight. 

His fingers tangled in her hair while his other arm remained around her waist, hand clamped with a bruising hold on her hip while she stroked her hands up his chest to his neck and down again, over and over, as if to remind her tactile senses that he still lived. His heartbeat against her palm continued two years after she’d thought it had stopped. Now, it was rushing for her.

All the while, they kissed desperately and gladly.

Sherlock blindly stepped forward, taking Molly with him, never loosening his clutching embrace of her, his lips still furious against hers. They moved through dapples of sunlight, though Molly wasn’t sure she could credit them for the bursts of brightness behind her eyelids. When her back hit an overgrown tree, his hand and arm absorbed the shock of impact.

He pressed her back, and she gasped at the fire he stoked in her. This mindless passion cast them adrift, and she only wanted to move further from shore with him.  Dimly, she recognized the madness. They needed to talk. She needed to understand, because right now she only understood that somehow, her body was awakening to Sherlock Holmes, and she awakening him. She could barely acknowledge the hurt that had battled her joy the instant she realized that his two years of silence were not due to six feet of earth between them.

When she was holding him in a way that had him panting against her mouth, it all slipped away. She was scared of his answers, but she was emboldened by his reaction to her. She was drunk off of it, and greedy for more. So instead of pulling back and asking him everything she  _must_ know, she let her hand creep under the hem of his tunic, to smooth up the skin of his back. Though her fingers encountered a topography of new, raised scars, she smiled at the low sound he made, in part her name, in part something else.

Molly felt his fingers plucking clumsily at her dress’ side lacings. Just as she twisted her body to assist him, though, a sharp cracking noise broke their single-minded concentration on each other.

He whirled around, his sword drawn within a half-breath.  She couldn’t see anything beyond his back, so she ducked her head to peer under his raised sword arm. Casting her eyes about to identify the threat, she also desperately looked for something she could use as a weapon. The only thing remotely useful was the rope laying on the ground where Sherlock had freed her. But could she get to it in time?

They hardly breathed as they sought the source of the noise. And then they exhaled in shared, gusty relief when a deer stepped into their sights. It munched lazily on grass, stepping on several more branches while it sauntered past, unaware of its audience. They watched, stunned, until it once more disappeared from sight.

Resheathing his sword, Sherlock turned back around. The interruption had restored sanity for both of them, it would appear. He didn’t sweep her back into his arms or continue his efforts to divest her of her clothing. She didn’t resume touching him in the way she’d longed to even before the night told her that he loved her as he prepared to leave.

“Sherlock,” she whispered, this time not in stunned joy.

He nodded. “I’ll tell you everything. I promise. But first, let me—” His eyes swept over her, making sure she was unhurt while also drinking in the sight of her.

She knew she was filthy. Dried saltwater made her hair gritty and coarse. It was likely laden with bits of seaweed. Dirt and sand coated her skin. She’d been smothered, dragged, and tossed from one shoreline to another, and the grime would take several washings to clear away.

None of it mattered to him. Exhaling shakily, Sherlock stepped up to her again. She didn’t know how she could tell, but she knew it wasn’t to reinitiate their almost-love making. Gently, he wrapped his arms around as he placed soft kisses to each eyelid, to each cheek, chastely to her lips, before he buried his face against her neck. At once, he was no longer the impassioned man ready to have her where they stood.  Now, he was a lost man restored, breathing slowly and hugging her to him tightly.

The tears did come then. They slid down her face unchecked, dripping onto Sherlock’s neck and shoulder. When he became aware of them, he drew back again to look at her, his eyes speaking with more tenderness and sorrow than Molly had ever felt from him.

“I owe you a lifetime of apologies,” he said lowly, quickly, cupping her cheeks and brushing away the splashing tears that continued to fall, “for so many things. But we can’t stay here, Molly. We have a long trek through the forest. You can ask me anything you need while we move.”

She decided not to remind him of how easily he’d forgotten this unspoken urgency moments earlier. Instead, she nodded and indicated for him to lead the way. He held his hand out to her, only moving when she laced their fingers together.

…

The woods had seemed to stretch on endlessly in Molly’s approach on her captors’ ship. Now that she and Sherlock hurried through dense underbrush and thick trees, she could not tell if they had made it even meters from their starting point. Everything looked the same.  She’d learned some hunting and tracking from her father, but those skills relied on being able to see the sky or any other landmarks than tree upon tree.

Clearing her throat again and again, she’d intended to voice the barrage of questions that demanded answers from Sherlock. Now, however, she could only look worriedly around, wondering if they would end up right back at their point of origin. At least then she’d recognize the drab blanket and the abrasive rope.

“Sherlock?”

“Yes?” he said only somewhat distractedly. He dropped her hand and strode up to a felled tree, jumping onto its mossy trunk and down to the other side. He turned back and put his hands on her waist, intent on lifting her over the knee-high impediment.

Molly rolled her eyes gently and hiked her dress up enough to take the large step onto the tree. She did let him hold her hand on the hop back down, however.

“Do you know where we’re going?” she asked.

He looked back at her, a genuinely baffled expression flitting across his face. “Obviously.”

“I am fairly certain I know, but are we in the F—“

“The Forgotten Man’s Forest?” he interrupted. “Yes.”

“And it’s called that because—“

He waved it away. “Because a few people have disappeared in here, never to be seen again. They likely got distracted being poor examples of sentience. Maybe the moss grew over them while they tried to remember what “as the crow flies” means. It’s none of our concern, since neither of us is lacking in even average intelligence.”

Exasperation warred with nagging joy, and Molly gave his hand a reprimanding squeeze, only to maintain her tight hold.  The strange sensation of being in his company again was tempered by the fact that he seemed so unchanged. He remained the man with whom she’d fallen so in love.

“If we get lost in here, I hope you have some knowledge of edible plants,” she informed him. “I refuse to die because I couldn’t find my way out of a bloody forest.”

He tugged her forward a little when they reached a slight clearing, allowing to them walk abreast with each other. “It’s a needless concern, but I am sure we’d be just fine.”

Despite his words, the sudden stillness around them left Molly on edge. “And the wolves?”

The look he shot her bore more than a slight trace of condescension. “Be realistic, Molly. There’s no natural predation in these woods. That’s why that deer—“

It happened too quickly for him to react.  In a blur of motion, something large rammed into Sherlock, knocking him to the ground. He gave a pained shout, as the snarling animal’s jaws snapped him.  It crouched over his prone form, leaving Sherlock to push against its ribs. For all his strength, he barely jarred the animal.

The muscles beneath the wolf’s silver and black coat rippled in the low forest light. Molly’s shock held her immobile for three, breathless seconds, before she snapped out of it, forcing herself to _think_.

What she knew about wolves wouldn’t fill a paragraph, but she did know that if this one was part of a pack, she and Sherlock might as well eviscerate themselves to help the predators out. In fact, it might be less painful, since—to her knowledge—wolves didn’t eat carrion.

She couldn’t see any other animals around them; no glow of canine eyes flickered in the dark of the trees. No growls rumbled from dense shrubs. But she still scanned the area as carefully as she could, as quickly as she could. When she heard birds in a cautious perimeter around their small clearing start to chirp, she allowed herself to relax minutely and concentrate on saving Sherlock’s life from attacker that currently held him pinned.

And then she remembered it: a distant echo of her father’s voice, calmly telling her what to do if she ever encountered a wolf. There’d not been a sighting of one in the forest by her village in his lifetime, but her father, ever staid and thorough, took nothing to chance when his only child begged him to take her along on his hunts.

Molly looked around for anything that might work as a weapon. She would have moved for Sherlock’s sword, were it not pinned beneath his weight and the looming wolf.

“Cover your neck and face,” she yelled to the struggling man.

“Trying,” Sherlock gritted, though one hand scrabbled desperately for his sword hilt. He’d never reach it in time, Molly knew.

Finally, her eyes landed on a large branch—a limb of a small tree, actually—lying on the ground. Ignoring a pressing fear that it might be attached to something larger and immobile, Molly darted over to it. Thankfully, it lifted without impediment, but it took all of her strength to heft it.

Steeling herself, she turned back to man and animal. Before she could second-guess her plan, she charged.

Most of the branches—mere twigs, really—splintered when they connected with the wolf’s side, but the main limb sank into flesh, puncturing it. With a sharp yip and whine, the wolf skittered away, disappearing just as quickly as it had arrived.

The momentum of Molly’s run at the wolf had thrown her to her knees when the tree limb met the wolf’s torso. Falling forward, she’d caught herself on her hands while she watched the beast's injured retreat. She listened carefully, but heard nothing else for several moments, before birds directly above them began calling cheerfully once more.

Sherlock lay splayed on his back, staring dazedly up at the tree canopy. His chest heaved and his brow shone with sweat. Still stunned, Molly carefully crawled over to him, ignoring the stink of nettles digging into her palms as she moved. He heard her creeping approach and heavily turned his head to watch her.

When she reached him, he started to sit up, but she made a noise of distress, and he reclined again. Though his face twisted with impatience, he allowed her the chance to see that he was unharmed. He said nothing as her hands moved over the back of his head, around his neck, and across his torso.  New rips decorated the material of his tunic, with matching scratches to the skin beneath them, but nothing life threatening presented itself.

Finally releasing the breath she’d drawn in before moving over to Sherlock, she sank back onto her haunches. Her body shook with ebbing adrenaline and heady relief, and for several moments, she could only grip his hand.

“Yes, but are you _sure_ there are no wolves in these woods?” she finally asked, her tone only quavering a little.

Sherlock glared at her weak joke for a moment, before giving way to a low, reluctant laugh. He allowed Molly to help him sit up, and they looked at each other quietly. Neither wanted to admit just how much the event had frightened them, so Sherlock only tugged her to him, kissing her gently.

Pulling away from him a short time later, Molly pushed his hair back from his forehead. She smiled a little when it just fell back in place, and his lips tilted a little in response.

“We should move,” he said lowly.

“Yes,” she agreed, but it was still another minute or so before she took to her feet again and helped haul Sherlock to a standing position.

He winced a little as he straightened, but waved away her sound of concern. “Just scratches, really,” he reassured her.  They began walking again, at an only slightly slower pace to accommodate Sherlock’s sore muscles and abused flesh.

Nothing looked amiss, with none of the unnerving stillness that had preceded the wolf attack. Molly allowed herself to relax enough that she could actually pay attention to roots and stones that might trip her otherwise. But she kept her eyes moving, scanning for glowing eyes.

And then, at once, a new distress took the place of some of Molly’s wariness.

Sherlock heard her sniffle quietly, and he drew up short, alarmed. “Are you alright? What’s wrong? Did the wolf injure you?”

“No, no, not at all.”

When she didn’t explain herself, he said her name loudly enough to cajole a response.

“It’s just…” she looked away, eyes cast upwards and darting in a weak effort to spread the pooling tears so they wouldn’t fall. “I keep thinking about it.”

He sighed. “Really, Molly, I’m uninjured. Just a little scraped.”

“I know that,” she waved his words away. “I don’t see any deceptively simple wounds that might actually be slowly exsanguinating you.”

“And I can’t tell you how relieved I am to hear it.” He grinned rakishly, but Molly’s failure to return it had him sobering once more. “It is my understanding that traumatic sights can be relived in one’s memory for quite some time. I know it was frightening. I must admit that even I will have a few bad moments because of it. But we survived, and that is what matters.”

“And that’s just it,” Molly said, fresh tears escaping. “We escaped unscathed. The wolf didn’t.”

Sherlock stared at her. “What?”

She scrubbed at her face. “I just keep thinking about that poor animal. He didn’t die right away, but there’s no way he could survive the type of puncture would to the thorax; not where I stabbed him.”

“You—you’re worrying about the _wolf_?” he asked, dismayed.

“He won’t understand why he’s hurting,” Molly said, openly weeping now. It was disconcerting, as if she was looking at herself from afar. She realized that she was likely having a small nervous attack due to the turmoil over the last hour, but she couldn’t sway her outpouring.

“Molly,” Sherlock huffed, “it tried to _eat_ me.”

“Probably because it had recently given birth to pups and was starving,” she whimpered.

“You’ve been calling it a ‘he’, but now he might have recently given birth to pups?”

She nodded miserably.

Sherlock put his hands on his hips and studied the toes of his boots.  “I’m terribly sorry I didn’t become a tasty meal for the slobbering, murderous fiend.”

That didn’t help. Her tears just fell harder with guilt over her strange grief. Her attempts to rally her senses proved to be even more in vain as she recognized just how ridiculously she was behaving.

Still, she knew they couldn’t tarry. “I’ll be okay. Let’s just keep going.” Her breath stuttered with emotion, and Sherlock glowered, looking a tad inept.

Finally, though, he strode forward and took Molly’s face in his hands. “I know you’re gentle and hate the thought of causing suffering. But Molly, you had to. You _saved_ me. I am grateful for that.”

His hands on her face helped ground her, and her odd foray into emotional meltdown steadily calmed. Ashamed, she tried to look away, but Sherlock’s hands on her cheeks prevented anything but the closing of her eyes so she wouldn’t have to face him.

He tugged her forward gently, kissing her forehead and holding her until her shaking calmed. Against her skin, he murmured, “Are you alright now?”

She nodded, sniffling loudly. “Just an infant, apparently.”

“The body’s natural response to stress and turmoil can be a morass emotional peaks and nadirs,” Sherlock said, turning and starting to walk yet again with her hand in his. “I once saw a scarred, gruff ship captain weep for an hour even though he was laughing at the same time. All because we’d survived a small-scale hurricane.”

Molly waited Sherlock out, distracted with the need for answers. When he said nothing else on the matter, though, she decided the time had come for prompting.

“Is that where you’ve been all this time? At sea?” she asked quietly.

He shook his head. “Only briefly. I stowed away onboard a ship belonging to a pirate by the name of Oruç Reis. Just to escape the country. James thought he’d managed to kill me, and I wanted him to believe it to be true for as long as possible.”

Sherlock had left their village in January, two years earlier. A rider had arrived less than two months later, bearing news that of Sherlock’s death. He had fallen over a cliff edge whilst fleeing James’ men.

For some reason, his casual mention of it made fresh the memory of Sheriff Lestrade knocking on Molly’s door on a sunny March afternoon. She’d smiled at Gregory in welcome, but his expression had killed her cheerful greeting as it met with her lips.

She wasn’t sure she’d smiled again since. Two years had felt endless. Until today. Now, she could not be certain she wasn’t still answering her door to the worst news.

Sherlock’s hand coming to rest on her hip as they walked refocused her, though. His touch and his voice were real enough.

“How _did_ you survive?” she whispered. “I’ve seen that cliff edge. No one could survive a fall from that height. The impact with the water would be like landing on stone, even if you’d managed to avoid the rocks.”

“Ah,” Sherlock said, looking a little mischievous. “I had help.”

“I gathered. But from whom?”

“It took coordination. I realized that James meant to execute me on site. If I’d gone with Lestrade, I wouldn’t have made it out of the village. So I decided to grant the prince his dearest wish, and I mapped out contingencies for each spot that I might encounter his lackeys.

“James has laid waste to the livelihoods of thousands. It wasn’t hard to get help from several of poor he’d so recently exploited. And it wasn’t hard to find a recently deceased body that would resemble mine from far enough away.”

“From the top of a cliff to the rocks below,” Molly said, realizing. “The trauma would be such that it would be difficult or impossible to verify its identity.”

She thought of James, asking her for details on how to disguise a body’s identity and cause of death, and she shuddered, remembering that it had only happened that morning.

“Just so,” Sherlock replied, drawing her attention back to him. “There was a small cave about two meters below the cliff edge. I only knew of its existence because I’d see a light shining from it as I sailed past one night. Some drifters had taken up temporary residence there. It wasn’t even visible in daylight. I’m still not sure how _they_ found it.”

“How did you get into the cave when you ‘fell’?”

He nodded, eyes narrowed as if recalling a difficult equation. “The cliff isn’t a sheer drop. It just looks it. The cave has a lip, but it blends with all of the other jagged outcroppings. It was a matter of calculating which outcropping to land on. The minute I landed, my assistants shoved the recently deceased body out.”

“It could have gone horribly wrong,” Molly breathed, glancing at him.

“It could have,” he agreed. “But it worked like a scene from a play.”

Molly rolled her eyes slightly at his puffed up chest, thrilled though she was by his forethought.

“So you waited for the guards to clear out, and you made your way to the port?”

He made a noise in the affirmative.

“Where you stowed away onboard a”—she paused, thinking of the captain’s name—“Persian ship?” And then, off Sherlock’s nod, “How did you avoid being found out by the ship’s crew?”

“Oh, I was found out,” he answered blithely. “The same day that I climbed on board.”

A clutching of fear gripped her belly, though, clearly, he’d survived his ordeal. “They might have killed you. Again.”

“They thought about it,” Sherlock said. “Reis asked me why they shouldn’t just slit my throat and dump me overboard.”

“What’d you say?”

“I politely asked him not to.”

Molly squinted, confused. “And that convinced him?”

“After a fashion.” Sherlock suddenly looked uncomfortable, like he was done explaining.

Which only prompted Molly to push him on the matter. “After what fashion?”

“I told him that I’d make a good shipmate and offered my services. There are many unexpected skills required in mastery of the art of death.”

Molly arched a brow. “You’re fibbing.”

“I once convinced the town magistrate that his skiff needed new paint just by the—“ He glanced at Molly’s sardonic face and sighed. “Fine. I asked him nicely not to kill me, he asked me why he shouldn’t.”

“And you answered…” she prompted when he wasn’t forthcoming..

“That I going to overthrow James. That I was the only one who could.”

Molly was so bewildered by his prior hesitance that she very nearly missed Sherlock’s muttered addendum, “And I explained that I had someone waiting for me to come home; someone whom I truly loved.”

A girlish blush suffused Molly’s cheeks, and she ducked her head to hide it, nearly tripping on the hem of her dress in the process.  “And Reis is no friend of the prince’s.”

“He’s not. That only helped me, but to this day, he insists that it was actually the second bit, the maudlin sentiment, that convinced him.”

“I’m glad your grudging love for me could rescue you,” Molly said, smiling slowly.

The tips of Sherlock’s ears flushed red. “It’s not grudging,” he insisted peevishly. “Just having to use my feelings for you as a means of—Oh. You’re teasing me.”

“I am,” she agreed.

“Anyway,” he said, darting away from the hateful subject of love, “Reis decided to allow me a trial duration. He promised to slice my gullet and feed me to the sea if I did anything he didn’t like.”

Molly swelled with pride. “And you managed not to offend a group of pirates, or at least provoke them enough that they decided to kill you.”

He eyed her. “Don’t patronize me.”

“I’m not!” she insisted, grinning stupidly. Her Sherlock.

Shaking his head in exasperation, he peered ahead. He made a small ‘Ah ha’ sound, and quickly pulled Molly forward, until they stepped out into a clearing. They’d come out of the woods at last.

Her eyes had adjusted to the influx of light. Now, even through dense cloud cover, everything was too bright and she had to blink rapidly until it became less uncomfortable.

“Nearly there, now.” Sherlock smiled slightly at her, his earlier umbrage forgotten as he walked with renewed vigor.

Nodding, she followed along. “So you sailed to…”

“Greece,” he supplied. “I earned my keep on the ship, and departed the crew’s company at Piraeus two months after stowing away.”

“Were you sad to leave the piratical life behind?”

“Only little boys daydream of being pirates,” he said primly. But Molly noticed he hadn’t answered her question. Not clearly, at least.

“Where did you go then?”

He frowned, thinking. “It’s a blur, admittedly. I crossed over and out of many places; infiltrating various organizations that I had reason to believe were gathering stores to aid James in a takeover. I disabled each and moved on. I mostly stuck to the continent. There’s a land war going on in Asia right now, and I didn’t care to get involved, though I did visit India very briefly. Or as briefly as one can, considering the length of travel time.

“Most recently, I escaped imprisonment from an annexed nation-state on the western border of the Ottoman Empire.”  His unhappy expression deepened, and Molly remembered the scars she’d felt on his back.

This time, when he didn’t give further detail, she didn’t push him for more. Instead, she said, “And then you came here.”

“And then I came here,” Sherlock confirmed. “I managed to glean information from my captors. Information that led me to believe that James was about to make his move.”

“I was James’ move,” she murmured, having realized when she’d woken that morning, on the ship with Jeffrey, John, and Dzundza.

He glanced at her before looking carefully ahead, nodding. “Yes. Your assassination would be the impetus for a war, one that would destroy empires. Or it would have, had I not dismantled all of the building blocks he’s so meticulously assembled.”

When Molly only ruminated on everything that had happened, Sherlock interrupted her thoughts. “ _Why_ , Molly?”

She’d known it was coming, of course. While he might have borne the bulk of responsibility for offering explanation, she had some she needed to give as well.

“When you left,” she began carefully, “I was willing to do as you requested. I kept on my duties as midwife, but I also took on the responsibilities you’d left me, offering consultation and examination of the town’s dead and dying.”

“But it wasn’t enough?” he asked.

“It wasn’t a matter of being ‘enough’, Sherlock,” Molly insisted. “You _died_. I was bereft and filled with so much impotent anger.”

“So you decided to put yourself in the prince’s way to avenge me?”  He shot her an almost flirtatious smile as he turned and put his hands on her hips, crowding her. She put a staying hand of her own on his chest to stop him from lowering down to nibble on her lips.

“In part, yes. But I also knew no one else would stop him, and I had an in.” Sherlock arched an intrigued brow at her. “It was a gamble. I knew he was looking for someone to work in the study of death. So I made sure I was quite public with my activities, and it ended up being a simple matter of the right person mentioning it to the right person, who mentioned it to the prince.”

The details of her calculation were enough to have Sherlock drawing back, his face blank once more disguising a worry that only she would notice.  “How long ago did he find you?”

“Three months. He journeyed to the town and took up residence there. At first, he only attended consultations, and I answered him honestly and to the best of my knowledge until he trusted me. He never seemed to suspect the depth of my prior connection to you, and I worked hard to maintain that.”

“Very well,” he capitulated. “But why did you get _engaged_ to him? Were you forced?”

Molly fought not to laugh at the peevish, boyish distaste on his face. “No, I wasn’t forced. I agreed of my own volition, because it suited my purposes. I hate him, Sherlock, but I needed him to want me near. But I dare say it would have gone differently if I’d refused his proposal.”

Sherlock sighed. He couldn’t refute it, but Molly could see the struggle with each twitch of his lips as he tried to think of a retroactive way to deter her foolhardy behavior.

“I don’t understand why he decided to kill me, though,” she mused. “I’m not saying I’m a polymath, but I do have some unique knowledge of death.”

Sherlock nodded. “But to James, it’s always a matter of shifting purposes. I imagine he decided he could spare you the day he ‘asked’ for your hand.”

Molly could only agree. The conversation came to a close, though, when they moved over the crest of a hill, and Molly could see Sherlock’s ship below. It floated in surprisingly calm waters, docked and ready for them on a quiet pier.

“How did your ship get over here?” she asked.

“It’s too big to pilot single-handedly,” Sherlock explained. “I’ve retained the services of a former informant of mine, Bill Wiggins. He and I planned this point for our reunion, as it were.”

Molly nodded. “Where will we go?”

Sherlock shrugged. “We’ll find supplies in a port town, and then wait for James to finish digging his own grave. It should be a matter months, if I’ve timed it correctly.”

Molly fought a grin. She and Sherlock would finally be together. It had taken years and death and piracy and an engagement to a madman, but they were finally looking at the sails of a new freedom.

Looking at her companion, she found that, he, too, was smiling with a burning anticipation. His grip on her hand tightened, and he eagerly pulled her to the dock.

It was only when they’d made it halfway down the pier that the small hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. Something was very wrong.

“Molly,” Sherlock murmured, pulling her up short, drawing his sword.

The sounds of footsteps clipping their way towards Sherlock and Molly were all it took for Molly’s eyes to slide shut. She wanted to yell, to rail that it shouldn’t be like this. They they’d made it so far, only to fall into a trap.

But she tightened her grip on Sherlock’s hand and turned to face the ambush.

“This is a turn-up, isn’t it Molly?” Prince James asked as he sauntered up to the pair, flanked by Moran and the head of his Guard, a blonde woman whose blank expression had never shown a glimmer of warmth in Molly’s presence. “And Sherlock Holmes? I’m not entirely sure how or why you’re here, but I see you’re attempting to abscond with my beloved fiancée.”

His smooth, lilting voice made Molly that much more nervous, particularly when he silkily instructed, “Surrender.”

Sherlock adopted a look of theatrical surprise. “You wish to surrender to me? I must say I wasn’t expecting that, but by all means, Your Highness. I accept.”

James looked back at Sherlock like an impatient parent frustrated by his truculent boy. “Oh, give up.” He flapped a hand at the couple.

“Why?” Sherlock demanded.

“Miss Hooper will die if you don’t,” James said, shrugging, no longer playing.

A small flicker in Sherlock’s eyes was the only indication that James needn’t play any other cards, as he’d landed on the right one without having to draw more. Molly hoped desperately that no one but she could detect it.

“It might create an incident that’s harder to explain if she dies,” Sherlock pointed out.

Pretending to be taken aback, James’ mouth dropped open and he demurely covered it with his hand, the perfect, chilling pantomime of surprise.

“You’re right. I’ll probably need to wait a bit. Can’t have my plans gang agley, as they say.”

Molly shifted uneasily from one foot to another. She fought panic, trying to think of anything. They were outmanned and overpowered. She’d seen not a single sign of Sherlock’s alleged first mate, Wiggins, so there was little hope of assistance from that quarter.

“Well, darling,” James sighed to her. “It’s time we returned. I have some items of business to attend to prior to our wedding breakfast day-after-tomorrow.”

Day-after-tomorrow. He’d moved the wedding date up. And Molly had no misapprehension. He’d moved the wedding date up along with the day of her execution. And what of Sherlock? She was no fool. James would not leave him to meander away while the prince made off with the woman Sherlock had gone to such lengths to rescue.

As if he’d read her mind, James jerked his head at Moran, looking pointedly at Molly.  Nodding, Moran moved forward and gripped her arm, yanking her roughly forward. Sherlock shifted, making a low sound, but he didn’t have time to respond before James turned to his Head Guard.

“Morstan?”

She nodded, unsheathing her sword. Sherlock raised his in return, but Morstan knocked it out of his hand with an easy flick of her wrist. She didn’t even blink. Nor did she show any reaction when, with the slightest, most graceful lunge, she slid the tip of her sword into Sherlock’s chest, right at his heart. He emitted a pained shout.

Molly cried out in horror, jerking against Sebastian Moran’s bruising grip as Sherlock’s eyes slowly slid down to stare in shock at the blossoming red pooling across his tunic. In the dull, overcast gloaming, it stood out, shiny and wet against the black material.

Morstan used the edge of her tunic to neatly wipe her blade clean of Sherlock’s blood before smoothly resheathing it. She turned perfunctorily and moved past Molly, back to stand behind James. From behind the prince, she stood sentry, expressionless.

And then something peculiar happened. Even in her distress and rage, Molly saw…something. The merest tilt of Morstan’s chin. Nothing more.  

But Molly couldn’t wonder about it. She staggered, pulling desperately against Moran. He was too strong, though, and she could only watch in despair—terrible, heart-shattering despair—as Sherlock crumpled backwards to the dock, his eyes open and unseeing.

“I would stop that,” James said conversationally. “Your lover bought you some time, but only so much. It’d be a shame to truncate it.” He was still smirking down at Sherlock, but Molly knew he spoke to her and her frantic attempts to break away and go to the man lying in the growing pool of his own blood.

Hot tears sliding down her face, Molly retreated. She knew she was making keening, animal noises, but she managed to choke out words of love for Sherlock. They didn’t rouse him, and she stumbled along with the Prince’s party with no more fighting. The four of them moved down the shoreline, heading for a second pier set off in the distance.

But Molly couldn’t stop looking back behind her.

As Sherlock’s body grew smaller and smaller with the vastness forced between them, she never once saw him move.

* * *

 

 


End file.
